How to Create Your Own Picture Book

Children love personalized objects, such as pencils, pens and license plates for bicycles. They also love hearing stories about themselves. You can create the ultimate personalized memento with a storybook starring your child. He will read and cherish it for years to come.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Crayons, markers or colored pencils
• Computer
• Digital pictures of your child
• Color printer
• Scissors
• Glue
• Stapler
• Hole punch (optional)
• Binder (optional)

Instructions

1. Sit down with your child and brainstorm. Discuss potential ideas for a story. The story should hold the child's interest but be short enough to read in one sitting.

2. Write a rough draft of the story. Decide your preference of text and illustrations.

3. Print out digital pictures of your child to cut out and paste into your completed book. Choose pictures in which your child is facing the camera and smiling. You do not need to pick many pictures. Choose a few pictures and print as many copies of them as you need for the book.

4. Start writing and drawing. If your child has not mastered writing yet, write out the text yourself. Your child can draw the illustrations. At this point, also make sure the cover of the book has text and illustrations.

5. Paste the pictures of your child into the book in the appropriate spots.

6. Bind your book. You can choose to bind the papers together simply, by stapling, or punch holes in the pages to insert them into a binder.

Tips & Warnings

• Supervise children when using sharp objects such as scissors.

References

• The Children's Picture Book Project.
• Make your own picture books.
• So you want to write a picture book...