Homemade Baby Book

Some friends of ours are getting ready to have their first baby. One thing I learned along the way having my own kids is that I did not record my memories of their first years like I wanted to. I was too tired! So I decided to make a "simple" baby book as a gift for our friends. My hope is that it will be an easy to finish, fun, and complete "scrapbook" when their little one turns 1.

How I made it....

1. Covered 2 pieces of thick cardboard with decorative paper for the front and back cover, and picked out 14 peices of thick cardstock to act as the interior pages.

2. Cut interior pages to size, just 1/8 of an inch smaller than the covers.

3. Used my friend's binding machine to make it into a book (really cool!)

4. Completed each of the 14 pages as follows:
Page 1: The Day You Were Born
Pages 2-13: By month August 2010 to July 2011
Page 14: Happy 1st Birthday

What's on a page?
Each page has a 4.75 by 6.5 inch envelope glued on it. Before I glued it down, I sealed it and then cut open the right edge. This let's the new mom add a 4x6 picture on top of the envelope and journal on a card tucked inside of the envelope.

Here are a few pictures. Wish I had thought of this 6 years ago!

June 2011 Page, photo will be glued a little over the top embellishment, but can slide right under the bottom one.



Showing the journaling card that was tucked inside the envelope. I pre-printed the words "Amazing things you did this month..." And then cut out each one with a little tab so it would stick out of the envelope. Then I embellished each one.



The final "Happy 1st Birthday" page.