How to Make a "Baby's First Year" Scrapbook

Memory books are a great way to create a lasting, unique tribute to your baby's first year. Even if you don't consider yourself to be artistic, it's easy to create something touching and beautiful.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Art Sets
• Acid-free Scrapbooks
• Calligraphy Pens
• Glues
• Scrapbooks
• Scissors
• Scissors
• Acid-free Ink Pens
• Acid-free Papers
• Archival-quality Markers
• Colored Pens
• Cameras
• Film
• Rulers
• Stickers
• Colored pens
• Cameras

1. Make sure you have negatives for all the prints you plan to use. This way, you can replace them if necessary.

2. Sort through your prints carefully - choose only the best for your scrapbook, and keep the others in an archival quality photo box for later use.

3. Record major milestones such as first food, first step and when the first tooth made its debut.

4. Arrange your photos in groups according to themes, not just chronologically. You could have a "bath time" layout, a "trips to the zoo" page and so on.

5. Avoid discarding duplicates or very similar pictures - they can often become part of creative layouts.

6. Cut, crop, trim and silhouette your photos. Remember, you have the negatives, so you can always replace a print.

7. Leave some blank space. Rather than placing photos close together and filling up the whole page, leave space for headlines, captions, journal entries, and stickers or drawings.

8. Lay out everything in a number of different configurations before you glue it into place.

9. Be creative and have fun.

Tips & Warnings

• Consider the type of scrapbook you want very carefully - postbound books are great for two-page layouts, and you can add pages to them. Spiral-bound books lie flatter when open and often have prettier covers, but you can't add to them or move the pages around.
• Get a red-eye pen to fix prints taken with a flash. You can find these at most photography and scrapbooking stores and some general-purpose craft stores.
• If a product is labeled "archival quality," this means it's safe to use in your scrapbook.
• Make sure stickers or other tools you use are acid-free and lignin-free - special pH testing pens are available at craft and some photography stores.
• Pens have to be acid-free, too. Special scrapbooking and calligraphy pens in a rainbow of colors are available at most scrapbooking supply stores.
• Scrapbooking can be expensive. Try to keep things simple for your first project, then get into all the supplies and accessories when you're sure this is the hobby for you.

on 8/8/2006 My wife and I were so happy when she became pregnant that we took a photo of the test kit, with the two red bars meaning "positive." When people look at our album, they always say what a nice idea it was and how they wish they'd done the same.

on 3/15/2006 I save all my holiday, and other cards, people give me over the years for embellishments. The pictures or sayings on some of the cards are perfect for what you're trying to make your page say. For my daughter's baby book, I used some of the cards given me at her baby shower. Just make sure to spray with Archival Mist to make them acid free, or you'll have disaster on your hands in the future!

on 11/22/2005 It helps the presentation if you find different stationaries for different ideas. Say, one with animals for the zoo, or one with a rubber ducky and bubbles for bath time. Be creative!

on 11/22/2005 If you plan to get extra photos from your negatives, be sure to always put your negatives back in their original plastic cover!
That plastic is made for negatives and is PVC free!