| First, you'll want to begin to purchasing an archival | | | | stickers, diecuts or cut-outs of baby carriages, baby |
| safe and acid-free album of your choice. Sizes can | | | | bottles, safety pins, real saftey pins, bows, angel |
| range anywhere from 6"x6" to 12"x12". If you want | | | | wings, baby buttons, letter beads, metal plaques with |
| to make one as a gift, you might want to use a | | | | baby's hands and feet or various stamp images. Just |
| smaller size. You can include page protectors, but it's | | | | go to your local scrapbooking store and you'll see |
| not a necessity. The album itself can be spiral bound | | | | what you might need. |
| or postbound. Spiral bound albums are nice, because | | | | For the journaling, you might want to use your |
| the spirals can also be embellished giving it a special | | | | printer and print on vellum. It gives the layout a very |
| touch. | | | | special and soft look. Adhere the vellum with brads, |
| Decide on a theme. You can turn it into an ABC | | | | staples and ribbon, buttons, mini safety pins, eyelets, |
| album, my first year, either whimsical, cartoonisch or | | | | or with vellum adhesive. If you want a very personal |
| elegant, whichever you prefer. | | | | touch, use your handwriting. I tend to mix the two. |
| Next you'll want to choose your colors, blue/green | | | | You can also use large tags for journaling |
| brown/yellow/orange for boys, ink/purple/yellow | | | | You'll also want to decorate the front cover. |
| orange/brown for girls and green/yellow/brown for | | | | Sometimes you can find albums with windows on the |
| unisex. If possible try to coordinate the colors in the | | | | cover, which is great for placing a beautiful photo of |
| photograph with your cardstock and coordinating | | | | the baby. It's a good idea to take a piece of |
| patterned papers. Try to stick with double layouts as | | | | transparency to cover the photo for protection in |
| it is more pleasing to the eye to have coordinated | | | | case there isn't already one included. Cover the front |
| layouts. I usually take the right side of a double | | | | partially or completely with patterned paper, use a |
| spread for the photo(s) and the left side for | | | | wide piece of ribbon and tie around the front cover |
| journaling. You might want to stick with the same | | | | near the spine. If you have a spiral album, tie a few |
| color schemes throughout, changing the style from | | | | ribbons into the spirals. Embellish the frame and put |
| double to double layout. | | | | on the baby's name and viola! Cover finished! |
| When embellishing, try to keep it simple. A simple | | | | When making an album for someone else, you'll want |
| bow, sticker, tag, buttons or flower with ribbon might | | | | to make a pre-made scrapbooking album without |
| do. If you're using a small album, then you have to | | | | photos. Make sure that you include photo mats to |
| make use of the space you have available, so it's | | | | adhere the pictures onto and make titles or journaling |
| best not to clutter the pages with embellishments. | | | | generic. i.e. "Sweet Little Angel" can be for both a girl |
| Different types of embellishments you can use are | | | | and a boy. |