As some of you have already learned, I’m expecting my first baby this coming August. This has been just the sweetest news and I knew right away I needed to document my storytelling approach here on Simple Scrapper.
Over the next 18 months, I’ll be sharing my album of pregnancy and baby’s first year every so often. There are so many options when it comes to scrapbooking baby, but here’s what my simple solution entails:
- An easy-going style without focus on uniformity
- A hybrid – sometimes paper, sometimes digital – approach
- A modular system with full page & divided page protectors
I’ve been enjoying scrapbooking in 8.5×11 for personal projects, so my album framework will be based on that size. Though we are finding out the sex, my choice of products will tend to be more gender neutral with an emphasis on the stories and the images.
The album will include a combination of 8.5×11 paper and digital layouts plus photos, memorabilia and journal cards inside of divided page protectors. I’ve already got a few pages made documenting my struggle with infertility, the positive pregnancy test and first trimester worries.
I also just scrapbooked our first three sonogram photos using ATC-size cards. Hybrid templates and instructions for using these cards will be included in the March collection of Simple Pages / Simple Projects (releasing March 14).
Next up will be tackling the growing pile of paper memorabilia from countless Dr. visits. I know I want to use some of the large-pocket page protectors as well as do a special layout with the due date calculator.
Do you have any ideas for me?
Basic Supplies by We Are Memory Keepers
- 8.5×11 Classic Leather album in Buttercup
- 1- up Page Protectors (1 – 8.5×11 photo)
- 2-up Page Protectors (2 – 4×6 photos)
- 3-up Page Protectors (2 – 4×6 & 1 – 4.75×8.5)
- 9-up Page Protectors (9 – 2.625×3.5)
Congratulations Jennafer! One of my pregnancy pages with Ella was a comparison I did of my tummy growing from one month to the next.
I need to get my husband to start taking those photos!
Congratulations, Jen! I love the idea of this hybrid series. 🙂 And I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who dates the back of my pages. LOL!
The date has to go somewhere and sometimes it doesn’t make it as part of the design.
CONGRATULATIONS! I’m so excited for you! One thing I love that we did for our kids is to have each parent write a letter to the child near the time they were born. We put the letters in each child’s scrapbook. They all love looking back through their books and talking about when they were babies.
Thanks – letters are a great idea and an excellent excuse for using fun envelopes!
Love the sonograms, and I think you have a good mix of hybrid and digital. I second Neisha’s idea of letters – get the grands to write letters to the baby when he/she’s born, my mom did this for my daughter and she LOVES hearing about grandma’s description of her and what she looked like, what she did and how grandma felt. If you take video you can pull stills and transcribe dialog for a really cool page for your book.
ALSO – make books for your BABY. I have a set of 4×6 brag books that I put together for my kids when they were little – they were kept on a shelf where they could reach them, and they STILL pull them out 15 years later. Totally worth the price of all the prints – there are several hundred there. Some journaled, some just slapped in the book, but all just for little grubby fingers. Best wishes!
I love the idea of smaller, indestructible brag books for kids to look at.
Congratulations! We’re also expecting a baby in August, a boy this time:)
How cool – congrats Katie!
What great news to share with us!!! I am so happy for you!!
Ok… An idea for you. my feet grew 1/2 size with each of my 2 children. I hear this is common. You can put your footprint on a page now and when baby comes. You can then add your baby’s footprint alongside of yours. Tell a story about your feet inside the print and the 9 month journey and the “steps” you took
Original idea – thanks Cynthia!
congratulations! I haven’t done any of my baby albums – although I did journal during my last pregnancy, I didn’t do anything special with it. Can’t wait to see how your album evolves.
Thanks!
Congrats! Wonderful news 🙂
Thanks so much Katie!
Aww Jennifer, I am SO happy for you sweetie! You really caught my eye with the documenting of your struggle with with infertility. My oldest daughter has the same, yet different, story to share and I hope to pass some of your ideas along to her. They are still in the process of trying to get pregnant and we are hopeful for sometime this year! 🙂
Congratulations, lations, lations! I am tickled both pink and blue for you and DH!
I hope to glean from you for ideas for both of my daughters who are, at best, minimalists! Neither one of them has caught the scrapping bug … YET! LOL!
Hi,
This is a brilliant idea:)
I can’t find any follow ups to this page, are there any?
I don’t normally like to leave things hanging, but I ended up going a completely different direction on this project. You can see some of that here:
https://www.simplescrapper.com/2011/07/19/free-download-instagram-album/