Make a Creative Baby Book Alternative: Part 1

This post is sponsored by Michael’s as part of their Make Every Moment Count Challenge.

Here’s the thing about babies: Everything they do is cute. It’s their schtick. Combine that with a camera on your phone and what you have is tsunami of kid pictures. (I dare you to hang out with a baby for a day and keep your phone in your pocket. Not possible.)

As a new parent, of course, you want to remember E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. (If I could bottle a little sample of spit up and tape it in a baby book, I think I probably would.) This is where I ran into problems with traditional baby books. Even the most creative, open-ended ones felt too c0lor-inside-the-lines for me. What if I don’t want to document our first solid foods, but instead want to write a sentence about each day for the first year? What if our first bath was uncharacteristically adorable and I have five great photos of it instead of the three there’s space for?

I knew from day one I wanted to create an unconventional baby book, a story of how we became a family. An open-ended scrapbook with plenty of white space to roam was definitely going to win out over a fill-in-the-blank alternative. But much as I love how diverse scrapbooking supplies have become, traditional scrapbooking has never become one of my preferred crafts. (There’s A LOT of competition for the title of “favorite craft” around here.)

For this baby book, I wanted to create something that felt more like a journal of getting to know each other. So when I went to Michael’s to find inspiration, I stepped outside of the scrabooking aisles to add some more traditional “art” supplies to my baby book plan. Of course, I also picked up some extremely useful scrapbook essentials like acid-free pens. (Use a 40% off coupon!)

Because I knew this baby book would encompass many memories, layouts and colorful photos, I decided to keep the accents I used within a specific color palette.

My goal has been to jot down periodic notes, doodles and memories in the journal as they happen.

Buuuuut, I have a 5-month-old.

So, what happens is that sometimes I write things down when they happen, sometimes I write them down way later and often, I just forget them. My hope though, is that through my hazy new motherhood fog, I can somehow document enough molecules of this first year together that the munchkin can look back and know how incredibly loved she is.

And that she was a really cute baby.

Later this week, I’ll share more pages from the baby book journal and specific tips for making your own baby’s first year book. (UPDATE: View Part II here.)

Michael’s provided the supplies for this post. All ideas and opinions are courtesy of yours truly. Check out Michael’s Lookbook for lots of ways to put your crafty fingers to work!