Thank you all for the lovely comments yesterday! I'm pretty excited about this week too, especially as I can now see the totality of what I've scrapped about Kieran in the last year. Today we'll talk about recording those important baby milestones.
Now, not only did I not buy a bunch of baby themed papers and embellishments, I didn't get a baby book either. I have to confess I'm not even sure what a baby book looks like. I'm pretty sure we didn't have those in the Caribbean back when I was a babe, so it wasn't at all natural for me to think of doing one. Plus I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't keep up with something like that. The number of journals and diaries that I have started in January but never finished the month out on, are testament to that fact!
So how am I keeping track of all the baby milestones? Well when Kieran was around two weeks old I started posting little updates about him on my blog. My family lives far away and they read my blog to keep up, so this was a good way to let them know how he was doing. As the months went by I realised that what I was posting would be perfect for a minibook capturing his growth and development.
My blog posts were pretty simple: a photo of him at the age in question, and a list of what he was up to at the current moment. You can see an example of one of the posts here. My minibook is a hybrid creation. I used this free template by Cathy Zielske and adapted it to my needs. I used the photo and journaling from my blog posts, added digital patterned papers by Karla Dudley, then printed the pages out on photo paper.
I used the letter sized template, but in order to get smaller pages I set up my print options to print two images to a page thus saving paper and printer ink! Once I cut out the images, I stuck them to the kraft pages and added the titles using Thickers. I then made covers for the book out of chipboard, and bound it all together using my Bind-it-All. The book measures approximately 6"x7"
With some forethought, you could actually bind the cover and pages of a book like this upfront, then simply add the printed image when completed. I documented Kieran at 1, 2, 4, 12, and 20 weeks and months 4 through 12.
Some of the collective also captured a year in one minibook.
Mini album by Rebecca
Minialbum by Aly. She used a 4x6 slip-in photo album, and there is room to add more photos as Faith grows!
I have also done regular scrapbook pages about some of Kieran's milestones.
At 16 Weeks - when he started being interested in his toys
At 4 months - when he started holding his head up
At 5 Months - when he was working hard on sitting up
At 8 Months - when he started to crawl
Aly had a similar idea and captured Faith at one month old in this adorable page
I also wanted to record some important first events:
First Playdate
First Foods
First Christmas
First Birthday
Erin took this idea and ran with it making a minibook of Emma's Firsts. I am totally gonna steal this idea!
She also documented the entire week of Mackenzie's first birthday. Another idea worth stealing, as I am currently taking a photo of Kieran every day this month.
Now I don't want to give the wrong idea here, I am no way done with recording all the milestones and firsts from the last year. I still have a list of other pages and minis to create including
First Bath
First Tooth
First Tricycle
Rolling Over
Pulling up to stand
First steps
Plus I will do at least one more page for his birthday and Christmas, as well as minialbums for both events.
I do hope that we've given you some ideas on how to get started documenting some important milestones. Please do ask questions if you have any!
I'll be back tomorrow to talk about what's probably my favourite part of scrapping about Kieran so far: the everyday stories!
