ABC Books

When Joseph was a baby, we had a little board book of "Baby's ABCs" that had pictures of babies holding things for each letter of the alphabet.  As we read through the book one day and I saw B was of a baby holding a ball, I thought "I have a picture of Joseph holding a ball... and I have a picture of Joseph eating an apple..." and that's how I got the idea of a personalized ABC book.  6 of 8 kids have one.  Lily's is almost done.  I have kept up with making one for each kid, ...barely.  My goal usually is to finish the ABC book for a baby before the next baby came along, and I did good through Abi.  I finished hers before Lily was born, and I almost had Lily's done before Sophia was born, but then didn't every wrap it up, not sure why.  Well, Mel's been bugging me a little bit about it, asking when I'm going to finish Lily's ABC book, so I hunkered down and made a goal to finish it this month.  And I made a goal to finish Sophi's book during June.  I finished all the pages for Lily's book over the weekend, I just need to take the trip to Kinkos to get it laminated.  (I know it's FedEx office now or whatever, but I still call it kinkos, and I can do that since I used to work there.)

Love the picture of Corey kissing Lily on K ~ 

there's just something about a man kissing a baby...

So, since I'll have to get Sophia's laminated too, I'm saving myself a trip and will get them both laminated next month after I finish Sophi's book.  Here's how I make the books:

1 - Go through photos from the first 2-3 years of the child's life and pick out cute pictures that you like, trying to find one for each letter.  I usually have like 60+ photos that I narrow down.  Q is usually Quiet, sometimes it's Queen.  For X and Z I've been okay with using a word that had X or Z in it, like Box, Six, or Buzz (Lightyear).  I'll write out the ABCs and then look at each picture and see what letters I could use it for, since I usually end up shuffling them around from one letter to another to get the pictures I want and covering each letter.  Just keep narrowing it down.

2 - Then I figure out the colors that I want for each letter that compliment the final photo that was chosen.

3 - I've always used this type of Sketch notebook for the paper, since it's acid free and the right size for what I want, and I usually have had one on hand.

4 - Then I choose the font to use and go through and draw each letter in the color with a little saying under each picture, and I write the date on the side of the picture.  Here's an example from Melodie's ABC book.

5 - With scissors I round the corners of the pictures and the paper.

6 - Get it laminated - Find a store that has 10 milimeter lamination, as it's the strongest and will make it most durable from when the toddler's handle the books and write on them and get their sweet sticky hands on them.

And that's how I make my kids' ABC books.  :)  As the kids grow and go to college and get married, my plan is to keep them here and then giving them to each kid when their first child has their first birthday.  Won't that be fun!