Scrapbooking with photographs has been around since photos became available to ordinary people. Old scrapbooks tended to have photos mounted with photomount corners and perhaps notations of who was in a photo or where and when it was taken. Modern scrapbooking has evolved into creating attractive displays of photos, text and memorabilia.

As of August, 2006, the commercial scrapbooking industry celebrated 25 years of existence, as started by Marielen (pronounced "Mary Ellen") W. Christensen of Keeping Memories Alive, the world's first scrapbooking store(which then had a different name), headquartered in Spanish Fork, Utah, USA, in 1981.