Linda Brackley spent 25 years packing plastic silverware in

East Wilton.
By Samantha C. DePoy
Staff Writer
FARMINGTON
The colorful collages of stickers, stamps, beads and borders wrapped around photographs on the pages of Linda Brackley’s scrapbooks tell stories.

Brackley of Freeman Township is hoping the imagination that brings together those arts-and-crafts supplies to tell those stories without words will make the next chapter in her life a success.

In December, Brackley turned the page on a 25-year chapter of her life spent working in East Wilton packing plastic silverware, and bravely setting out on her first solo business adventure.

She is now the owner and operator of B & B Scrapping and Stamping, located at 145 Main St.

The shop features hundreds of rubber stamps; ink pads in almost every color conceivable from sea glass to apricot, mint to magenta; empty scrapbooks; dozens of different types of scrapbooking paper; die cuts and enough markers and colored pencils to keep a cache of campers busy on even the rainiest of days.

What people want and she doesn’t have, she’ll order for them.

Classes in scrapbook making, stamping and greeting card making will be held for a small fee starting next month, and already, 46 people have signed up to participate. There is also space and equipment at the store for customers to work on their own scrapbooks.

Brackley, a mother and grandmother, got into scrapbooking a few years back as a way to preserve and display the hundreds of family photos that were yellowing in old albums and stacking up in shoe boxes.

She never thought it could be anything more than a hobby, until recently, she jokingly suggested to her husband, Clint, that she should open up a scrapbook store because the nearest place to get supplies was in Rumford or Augusta.

When he told her to “go for it,” she heeded the call. The store is open seven days a week, and Brackley’s daughter, Arlene Bubier, the other B in B & B, helps her out.

Scrapbooking is a personalized and thoughtful way of “dressing up” photographs, Brackley explained Thursday afternoon, as the chill hovering over the area kept business slow.

“Some women put it all right into it and do an amazing job,” she said. “Once people learn about it, and realize they don’t have to cut up their photos, they really enjoy it.”

While the plastic pages of many old albums have chemicals that deteriorate aged photos, modern scrapbooking supplies are acid-free and actually work to preserve the pictures.

Over the years, Brackley’s scrapbooking style has transformed from photos just pasted on a page into something much more complex.

Stamps of crabs, layers of paper in different shades of blue and a collage of words, some sparkling with glitter, that say “If you wanna have fun, you gotta GET WET” surround a photo of her two grandchildren enjoying a day at the beach.

“You can do anything with it,” she said. “And you are making it yourself so it has more meaning, more love.”

B & B Scrapping and Stamping is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, Fridays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. and Sundays, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For more information, phone 778-2225.

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