Mom Creates Scrapbooking Alternative

Inside Bay Area:

As a self-proclaimed “victim” of traditional scrapbooking, Cathy Bennett knew there had to be an online alternative that would provide the classy look she was going for in a baby book.

Dissatisfied with mainstream photo Web sites, Bennett took matters into her own hands.

Bennett, who lives on the Walnut Creek-Alamo border, launched a Web site of her own in July. How Fast They Grow enables users to create “high-end” scrapbook pages without ever picking up scissors or glue.

Bennett and her husband, Steve, have two children — 3-year-old Patrick and 2-year-old Elizabeth. Her attempt at traditional scrapbooking came out looking like a 5-year-old made the pages, Bennett said.

She toyed around with online photo and scrapbooking sites but said, “There was nothing that matched what I thought would be a beautiful baby book.”

The first weekend HowFastTheyGrow.com launched, the site gained 200 members.

With the site’s initial success, Bennett decided to leave her full-time job in August and devote herself to her children and her new business.

“It was a huge leap of faith,” she said.

The site is designed to run on “automatic pilot,” so pages are printed off-site when customers place an order. Bennett works part-time to fill gift certificate orders, answer customer questions and test new page templates.

Membership to the site is free — users can upload pictures, put them into a scrapbook page template and share them online for free. It costs $7.50 to order a 12-by-12-inch paper copy that will fit into a standard scrapbook, which can be ordered from the site or purchased in a store.