My name is Craig Barrett and I have been a letter carrier at Elway Station in St. Paul, MN, since 2002.
I’ve been scrapbooking and competing at the Minnesota State Fair for more than 20 years and have earned 54 ribbons for my entries.
I got into the activity by accident. There used to be a company that sold supplies through scrapbooking parties, and a friend brought me along to one. I make my own greeting cards and thought some of the tools they had might be useful for that.
It turned out that I brought home not only some new equipment but also a new pursuit.
I really appreciate the patience, creativity and attention to detail that goes into scrapbooking, which is the craft of preserving, presenting and arranging photos and other mementos in an album.
In the digital age, I still find joy in the tactile work of arranging photos and ephemera on a page.
Along with the thrill of competition, I love scrapbooking as a way to capture the important times in my life.
At the 2026 state fair, I received a first-place ribbon in the heritage category and earned the coveted sweepstakes award for best in show for the fourth time.
The two-page layout that won tells the story of my father, who operated the boilers used to heat the College of St. Catherine — now St. Catherine University — in St. Paul during the 1950s. I combined family photographs with historical images of the campus to bring his story to life.
For me, preserving memories is more than a hobby; it’s a way to capture stories, celebrate my family history and challenge myself creatively.
Sometimes I like to bring postage stamps into my work. I recently made a book to celebrate the Postal Service’s 250th anniversary and used some old stamps with George Washington and Ben Franklin on them. I also used the Letter Carriers stamps from 1989 to tell the story of my own career with USPS.
I spend a lot of time thinking about scrapbook ideas while I’m casing the mail and making deliveries, and it’s exciting to craft those thoughts into something artistic and meaningful.
“Off the Clock,” a column on Postal Service employees and their after-hours pursuits, appears regularly in Link.
