Despite all the openings online to store your digital pictures and news on social websites and blogs, the art of scrapbooking remains an extremely popular craft.

It appeals to kids, adults, women of all ages, and especially in classrooms. in short, anyone who wants to create a memory to last a lifetime, and wants to do it with a dash of creativity and personal input. It’s almost like a crazy quilt made with photographs, paper, and memories.

Anyone can do it. Scrapbooking kits are available in every craft shop, or just buy a plain paper exercise book. You can add all kinds of snippets to the cover (see picture) and create an ongoing story of pictures and text inside.

Perhaps the most famous scrapbooks of all are the works of Alfred Wainwright …

… who meticulously drew the landscapes of his native Lake District in the north of England, and lovingly added text around them in a fine caligraphic style.

So popular did they become, a top publisher published them all, just as they came. The scrapbooks now make up the finest guide to the mountains and lakes of the region, and are still in print.

Never say you can’t make a career out of scrapbooking.

Photographing a city is made much easier by the new generation of compact digital cameras. They are light and easy to strap to a belt, have their own zoom and flash facilities built in, and you only need some spare batteries to be in business, without having to lug heavy camera bags around with you.

Photographing your own city is a good way of building an archive of a rapidly changing cityscape, or just recording historic buildings for posterity. The local press may also be interested in using your collection from time to time, so there’s even the possibility of a future business.

At Syntagma, we’re beginning a photo exercise around our headquarters in the glorious city of Exeter, Devon, England. Here’s an example :

The Cathedral Close at Lunchtime — April

We are building a photo archive of Exeter over the summer months, in different lights and from different angles. The whole is designed to convey the gorgeous picture-book quality of this very ancient town.

I’ve found the best way to approach this project is by walking rather than driving around. When you walk, you’re free to divert down any interesting byway that may be impossible in a car.

I’m using a good quality compact digital camera : Advent 8MP, which I can slot onto my belt, plus a spare set of batteries.

Two things I’m looking for : the picturesque and the quirky. Both yield interesting images that others will want to look at. Here’s an example of the picturesque :

Lunchtime in an Elizabethan setting

The next pic is definitely quirky. It’s Parliament Street, Exeter, which is little more than 2 feet in width. There hasn’t been a parliament in Exeter for a good many centuries, but the Council still keeps it up — just.

Super-slim Parliament Street, Exeter

Why don’t you try photographing your own home town?

You can see the whole of this set of images on our Flickr Photostream.

In the age of blogging, publishing at home is relatively easy — at least if you don’t mind putting your work online for everyone to see free, and freely copy at their leisure.

Yes, there are problems with online publishing, despite its popularity. But what if you want to publish serious work the old-fashioned way, in books or booklets?

You’ll have to look at some old material to find information on the craft of printing and publishing at home. One of the best books on the subject was published in 1984 in the UK by two professional people who happened to run publishing businesses from home.

The book is: Publishing & Printing at Home by Roy Lewis and John B. Easson. It’s published by David & Charles and can be bought second-hand online.

Here are the opening lines of the book:

The spare-time publisher. This book is about the craft of publishing books, booklets and periodicals in small editions from one’s own backroom or backyard. It is a leisure pursuit or an occupation for retirement that is as suited to home operations as weaving, pottery, cabinet-making, metalwork, or photography and comparable creative pastimes.

Although outdated in its technology, the book teaches invaluable skills in producing and putting together one’s own books.

Much recommended.