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When my daughter was born, I went to a craft store looking for the perfect book to record memories of her birth and the happy years that were to come. What I found instead were high priced books that had your basic memory pages but nothing that reflected what I wanted to cherish of my daughter's years and the many memories.
I gave up the quest and bought a simple book to record the memories in text. Dates of her first tooth, first step and other special events were written in the book, but there were no photos of these memories, just words. It was also not a fun way to look back at your early years, especially when my daughter, now five, wanted to see her baby pictures and they were all in a series of labeled shoe boxes.
My journey in memory book making continued, until I realized that since I hadn't found something in the stores to suit my needs, I would need to create something on my own. I needed something practical, affordable and fun.
I purchased a variety of large sized photo albums, all of different colors and materials. Each book was under ten dollars and contained fifty pages which could easily be doubled or tripled since the photo albums were setup as three ring binders. Over the years I had collected stickers sent in various sample magazine offers, mailings and other free sources. My parenting and children magazines provided even more pictures, letters and borders, and these were prepaid subscriptions or gift subscriptions. So, for just the cost of the photo albums I was on my way to memory book making.
The key to making the book is having fun. You don't have to become a master at the craft, but you should have fun. Sorting through four years of pictures was not an easy task, but it proved interesting and fun when done with my daughter. We were able to look back at memories, events and family over the last few years. Two days later, the rainy weekend over, I had endless piles of pictures that needed to be put into memory books. We sorted the pictures first by year and then by category. Each photo album represented a year, so the only thing left to do was put the pictures in and have fun.
I used a separate page for a different event. Sometimes there were so many pictures I needed to use two or more pages. Cutting the pictures into different shapes and cutting out the empty area around the people or objects in the pictures allowed more pictures to be put on a page.
I created the theme of the page around the people or events in the memories. For example, a day at Atlantic City was bordered with various cut out magazine pictures of seashells, beach balls and casino clips. Pictures were cut into shapes of starfish, boats and waves. When done, the page was fun and told a story with no words.
Memory pages of my daughter's first few years have been just as fun to create. The pictures can speak for themselves, but with the added stickers and magazine clips, it creates a fun environment and a different way to display favorite and memorable photos.
The use of expensive memory book making pages, stencils and other accessories can assist in making your book professional in appearance. The use of magazines, stickers and other odds and ends will not only save you money, but it is something you can do with your children. When you do this, the memories will not only be the pictures in the book, but in the making of the book itself.
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