Scrapbooking your child’s first two years

“The first two years adventure” is the scrapbook album that I prepared for my little girl’s second birthday. It includes pictures and diary pages I wrote from her birth to her two years, and consists of 80 differently decorated pages containing 290 photos.

It is the most demanding and rewarding creative work done so far, to which I dedicated almost a year over my daughter’s naps and some afternoon weekends, when everyone was into their work: Lollo with his scrapbook, the little girl cutting and gluing paper and tape… everywhere!

I had the photos printed, I took out a scrapbook album, some scrapbook papers and cards, a nice butterfly craft punch, scissors, glue and tape and I started create the first page.

I bought the nécessaire (album, punches, paper…) at Hobby & Craft, one of my favourite stores, where you can really find everything for hobby and do-it-yourself, and something from Flying Tiger, Poundland and The Works. Instead, most of the materials I used to decorate pages and photos are scraps, stuff already at home.

I used for decorations: coloured cards, tissue paper, images cut out from gift wrap / magazines / old calendars, adhesive paper, washi tape, small stickers, laces and ribbons, kids’ scribbles (oops, drawings!) and lots of imagination, patience and love!

You will need

Your favourite photo prints (size 10 x 15 cm)
Scrapbook album (in my case white, size 30×30 cm, 40 sheets, for my son 20×20 cm)
Decorative papers and cards
Tissue paper
Washi tape
Scraps: stickers, laces, ribbons, cutouts from wrapping paper/ magazines/ calendars/origami papers

Craft tools

Scissors
Glue
Double sided tape
Paintbrushes
Punches
Markers (or permanent markers)

How to make

In scrapbooking the imagination can really run wild: by choosing the decorations and the craft materials you like the most. Generally I start a scrapbook by planning it, I mean, writing a storyboard for each page, in which I group the photos by themes or events, and I pin the type of decoration I’d like, possibly with a sample of the material. This phase requires time and patience, but then it facilitates the next phases.

Interested in a scrapbook page planner worksheet? Here is mine that I prepared for you as a free printable pdf.

When I create a page, I need to have all the materials at my fingertips because they inspire me: paper for the backgrounds, cards where to write texts, ribbons, cutouts, stickers and washi tape as embellishment. I let the photos tell a story, they are the protagonists, the decorations are a plus. My pages are never overloaded with decorations, but this is my personal taste.

Since I had a lot of photos, almost 300 (and imagine, I made a very careful selection of my daughter’s early years pictures…) I have printed all of them in the same size, then I resized some or cut out a few others…

Here some page layout ideas: pregnancy, birth, pages dedicated to dad, mom, brothers and sisters, grandparents, uncles, Easter, Christmas, Halloween, first birthday, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, the first day out, at the seaside, milestones, weaning, special event / celebration, bathing, dressing up, in the garden, crawling, first step, first words, just to mention some of them. Here some examples.