The Baby Book (That Took 10 Years to Build)
You’re going to think this is ridiculous. Not in the I-can’t-believe-that-politician-said-that sort of way. More like the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter sort of way. Here goes …
I joined the ranks of scrapbooking and eventually digital scrapbooking back in 2004. 11 years ago. For one reason. To build a baby book — a scrapbook of my daughter’s first year. I did build it but I was never happy with it.
It was too decorative. In my scrapbooking infancy, I was more focused on using tons of patterned paper and frocked scissors. Forget the details of her growing up, the day she said her first word and the actual word. Or the day she walked and my thoughts about the major milestone. Why put that in there?
You hear the sarcasm in my voice right?
I focused on making it look pretty instead highlighting the most important details I sincerely wanted to remember.
So did I revisit her book and make changes? Nah. Not yet. That’s shooting really high in the sky there and I’m still working on climbing the tree.
Instead, I applied the lesson learned to my son’s baby book. The one I’ve been steadily adding to about once a month.
I envisioned my daughter’s book would look just like this 10 years ago! Except I got lost amongst all the pretty patterns, colors, and products. And I love how to-the-point this book and how quickly I’m working through it.
I also cut a few other corners to make the process super simple for myself:
- Use the pocket system with my own Window System templates (coming back & soon to a digital store in May) so design and layout decisions were quick and easy.
- Chose a single patterned paper and kit set to use on every page. Again, limiting my choices makes design decisions quick and easy. The paper and embellishments are from Sahlin Studio’s I’ll Love You Forever kit. The weekly and monthly numbers come from Karla Dudley’s Number Essentials (not currently available).
- Filler and prompt cards were modified from Becky Higgins’ Digital Project Life Baby Edition. The price tag is pretty high as far as digital kits go but prompt cards point your mind to details and thoughts you’d otherwise skip.
- Quick black and white and photo tints using Totally Rad’s Lightroom Presets The Original & Amped. Katrina Kennedy converted me to Lightroom after her Coffee Break interview. And while I’ll always LOVE Totally Rad’s RadLab, (you can read my RadLab review here) switching to Lightroom adjusted my workflow. So goodbye RadLab, my love.
I’ll use this method to complete my son’s 1st Year Baby Book. Then switch to more fun and versatile design for the remaining years like my daughter’s books. But I’m tickled — humor me — that 10 years later I finally found the baby book I always wanted to create.
And all this time it was right at my finger tips.
What project (album or otherwise) has eluded you since you started crafting and what would help you finish it once and for all?
I recently realized that my oldest daughter would be graduating high school next year. I’ve started school year scrapbooks for my girls, but it’s been awhile since I worked on them. I had the idea that they would be fun to bring out at the graduation parties. Well, I looked back and learned that I had stopped after 5th grade! Only six years behind. Oops! So I have some catching up to do. I started the book (actually looks like it will be 3 12×12 books by the time I’m done) using traditional scrapping methods, but switched to digi. That’s all fine with me because it represents how I documented things at the time. She actually scrapped 3rd grade herself. I’ve been focusing on this project the past 2-3 weeks and have completed 6th and 7th grades and took advantage of the Persnickity Prints sale to have these printed. I’ve been making around 12 pages per year and use one of BH’s big pocket pages to hold report cards, concert programs and stuff like that. This has been the project that has been hard for me to focus on over the years, but with gradation in the not too distant future, I have a reason to get going again.
What a fun project, Lisa! Definitely can understand the push to get ‘er done especially with graduation a year away. I’ve been eyeing my daughter’s books hoping to fill in the gaps for school stuff and I keep putting it off because, you know, there’s always time. And it sneaks by doesn’t it? Graduation is the best motivation!
That’s a great story and what a lovely design for the pages you’ve shown! My big project is to scrapbook my trip to Africa. I went with my husband and we took a year off to do it. I kept a diary and took TONS of photos. I’ve thought of doing it with traditional scrapbooking methods but maybe digital methods will make life a lot easier. We’ll see. The trip ended about 7 years ago!!
So many things I love about this post.
– this is similar to my story my eldest boy turns 13 in a week. I started a traditional baby album with paper scrapping, got up to 3 months, got busy, turned digital and the thought of ‘wasting’ that book, plus having to scan in all the photos (pre-digital), plus the relative lack of photos (pre-digital), plus the poor quality of the photos, plus my memory is not good for 13 year old stories and I love journalling has all combined to put me off re-starting digitally.
– that’s why I love this post – you make it seem so doable. I have your window system – it’s great – recently made a photo book of a week’s holiday and it was so easy. Plus my family love the full pages – not really into white space my family
Thanks for clarifying your process and the resources you used. Now to get started!
I love this! I also learnt a lot from Emily’s book when I did Edward’s. I added a lot more photos and details. Now with Lucy, I’m doing not quite as many photos but keeping up just as many words. I realised that’s what I want to seem in the book.