Scrapbooking Ideas

Many women resist taking up scrapbooking as a hobby for fear that they could never keep up with all of the pictures that accumulate from their children’s active little lives. If you don’t feel you can devote this much time to archiving your family’s memories, don’t despair. Just commit to one thing every child deserves: a beautiful baby scrapbook. If you don’t create any other albums, that’s okay. You’ll have one heirloom every child should have: a chronicle of the love and joy his or her birth and infancy brought to the family.

Scrapbooking your baby’s photos can seem like a daunting task given all the Kodak moments that come with little ones, but there are simple and easy steps you can follow to preserve memories of your baby’s milestones and magic moments without feeling so overwhelmed.

The first step is to get an acid-free photo storage box. Sort your pictures here as soon as you pick them up from the developer. Because you will probably not be able to work on your baby scrapbook enough to stay current, it’s a good idea to label each event and jot down the dates on divider cards. This is also a good time to the crop pictures. When this step is done prior to scrapbooking, time is saved during the creative process. Cut out any extraneous background images that distract from the subject of the picture. Your pages will have better focus and be more artistically appealing.

No occasion is too trivial to be included in your baby’s scrapbook, but here is a list of events you’ll want to be sure to include:

pregnancy pictures, baby shower photos, a doctor visit, day of the birth, the doctor and nurses in the delivery room, coming home, the family and baby in front of the home, pictures with grandparents, other friends, and family members, the little angel sleeping, baby’s first bath, any baptism or dedication photos, baby’s first baby food, baby’s favorite toys, reading baby his or her favorite book, smiles and tears, developments in movement from pushing up to crawling to creeping to walking, baby’s first tooth, all special family gatherings and holidays, baby’s first haircut and baby’s first birthday.

Along with photos, it is great to include impressions of baby’s hands, feet, and or lips, a lock of hair, swatches of fabric from baby’s clothes or blankets, the hospital bracelet, etc. There are so many embellishments available for baby albums. Select ones that reflect the look you want to achieve.

When you look at baby’s album in the years to come, it will bring all of these memories and feelings back to life. Journaling is as important as the photos in reliving these happy times so be sure to put your feelings into words and describe what is taking place in your photos. You think you’ll remember these events forever, but when you look back at the album, you’ll realize so many little things would have been forgotten if not included in your baby scrapbook.