Ideas for Your Custom Baby Book Scrapbook
Sep 22nd, 2006 by wwaddell
Author: Wes Waddell
Your baby’s custom baby book scrapbook will be something that you and your family will cherish for a lifetime to come. Passing it on to your child when they are grown and out of the house will instantly turn it into an heirloom to be treasured for generations. It’s easy to imagine your great grandkids looking through the pages and seeing parts of themselves in the pages.
While premade and bound baby books from the store can be nice, they offer so many limitations to what can go inside, that many of the most treasured moments can get lost in the set themes and subjects that are set in stone inside. This is why, all of the best baby book scrapbooks you have ever seen and will ever see are custom baby books made specifically for the individual child. In this way, no special event is left out and there are no series of blank pages from events that didn’t occur or weren’t documented.
I know this from personal experience as both our children have the prebound books and neither of them are more than two thirds full. Their best baby pictures and baby book scrapbook pages are in their custom baby books that my wife, Kathy, made years later. We were late getting into scrapbooking…
Don’t make it harder than it has to be.
In today’s technology rich environment, baby book scrapbooking can be as easy, and sometimes easier, than even a pre-done book from the store.
Today, you can take advantage of the digital or computer scrapbook capabilities. Today you have sites like BabyScraps.com to provide ready made templates that you can fully customize for any occasion or event in baby’s life. Today’s high quality printers combined with easy to use software make creating your own custom baby book scrapbook an easy weekend project.
Take your time in preparing and sorting the images and embellishments. Make it fun to remember all those treasured memories just as you felt at the time of the event. Use a notebook or even better, type the memories up in a text file on your computer. Half the fun of putting the baby book together in the first place is remembering all the great times and even the pain that lead to the special bundle of joy you now hold in your arms.
What should you put in the Baby Book Scrapbook?
This is totally up to you if you are creating a fully custom baby book scrapbook. You can put any and all occasions that you have recorded so far. These are all the special times that you want to remember later on in life; especially after they have grown and left the nest.
A few things that I suggest you consider for your baby’s custom scrapbook:
I always recommend that you start your baby book scrapbook project by collecting the photos of when you were pregnant and early ultrasound images. Follow that up with pictures of your baby shower and even the birth if you have them. These are just a few of the special events you’ll want documented for the future. Then just chronologically follow your child through at least the first birthday. The events leading up to birth and the first year are great ways to kick off your first of what will be many family scrapbooks.
Some of the things you’ll want to include in the above list of events are Dr.’s visits, Visitors at the hospital, the nurses, and doctor who delivered your baby. Don’t forget to include the photos of family member holding the baby for the first time. It may also have been the first chance to get a multi generation picture with mom, daughter and granddaughter. If it’s a boy, Dad, son and new grandson. It doesn’t have to be a professional image. Documenting the fact that dad was there can mean the world later on down the road.
If it’s your first child, you’ll have time and thought to take lots of pictures that show the changes and wonderful things baby does. Make sure as child #2 and on… comes along you find the time to do much of the same. It can be quite challenging, especially if the children are within two years of each other to keep up with one and photo the other as much as you did your first. Just do the best you can with the time you have.
Today’s digital cameras, with their small compact size should make it easier to keep one handy for the little unexpected moments between siblings.
Within the first year, there will be many “firsts” you’ll want to document. The first day home from the hospital, first holidays, their first haircut, the first bath, and even their first smile and steps toward toddling. All those little things leading up to their first birthday.
Most of the hospitals here in the USA now provide the new parents with ink prints of his/her feet and hands. You may want to add any missing and even a little lipstick for their first kiss.
Baby Book Scrapbook Decorations:
Don’t forget that with digital or computer scrapbooking… it’s never an all or nothing proposition. You are free to add as much traditional, old fashioned, glue and wait scrapbooking as you desire to you digital scrapbook pages. 
Here are just a few of the many things that you can add that will give your custom baby book scrapbook texture and your own personal style.
At the top of my book of things to add is the journaling. A picture may tell a thousand words, but your hand written comments and notes tell the background that lead up to the story in the picture. And, as we all know, that can put things into a whole different light.
I highly suggest that you keep a notebook or digital assistant handy as much as possible. As you take the photo’s you’ll remember much more of why you took the image if you jot down your comments soon after rather than trying to remember it all up to a year later. Notes with acid free felt pens on the backs of printed photos will also help when it comes time to put the whole story together in your Baby Book Scrapbook.
As you print your pages or begin to put the hand scrapped pieces together, you can use sticker, brads, and ribbons as embellishments to the pages. Keep trinkets and remembrances of the season or event such as hair from the first haircut, wrapping paper from shower presents, invitations and cards, and especially the hospital arm bands from mom and child.
Most of all, remember that this book is about memories, preserved with many of the feelings you felt at the time the event was captured. If you fill it with the love and memories you feel… small imperfections will forever go unnoticed.
Actually I kind of like that… only it should be: “If you fill your child with love and happy memories… their small imperfections will forever go unnoticed” - Wes Waddell.
About the author:
Wes Waddell and his beautiful wife, Kathy are the proud owners of PrincessCrafts.com, the first Digital Scrapbook Membership site on the Internet. Currently PrincessCrafts and it’s 8 associated sites carry more than 5000 computer scrapbook templates for any occasion or subject. Save $100s on your scrapbooking each year.
Brought to you by:
Wes and Kathy
www.PrincessCrafts.com
www.TwasTheNightScrapbook.com
www.ComputerScrapbookLayouts.com
5505 Whipshaw Rd.
Peyton, CO 80831
(877) 751-6368
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