Turning your children’s lives into either baby books or a special book

It’s always great to buy books that have your child’s name in them, but sometimes to order these it can be costly and they don’t have many varieties that may not be targeted to

what your child likes. One idea is to make your own books about them.

You can upload digital photos and scanned drawings (your child has drawn) to websites such as snapfish or a local department store and they can print out specific photobooks of your photos to show the story, but this can end up costly and you can’t always add your own words to the pages.

It is so easy to edit photos and scanned imaged and create your own photobooks these days with MS Publisher and other software, get some help if you can’t do it yourself to add words and change the pictures. I’m sure there are friends who can help you with the computer stuff, the printing, laminating, binding or sewing.

For a soft baby book, make sure that you keep the number of pages to a minimum. Buy some t-shirt transfer paper from places such as Officeworks, Target, k-Mart, Big W or Harvey Norman. Then print the scanned drawings or digital photos on the transfer paper. Buy some cheap plain cotton fabric. Peel the backing paper off the transfer paper to reveal the images and lay them onto the fabric and iron without using the steam function of your iron (read the instructions on the transfer paper packet as each type may be different in how you print and/or iron them on). Try to keep all the images all the same size and then trim the edges with zig zag scissors then sew them together along one edge with a simple seam on your sewing machine. This will then be a simple cloth book like we used to have for children.

For a hard book, you could print each page yourself on plain card and take it to Officeworks or similar and get them to bind it. Or you can laminate the pages to make them harder, more sturdier and easy to clean. Punch three holes at the side of each laminated sheet; i.e. one at the top, middle and bottom, and simply thread some nice ribbon through each hole and tie together or put a couple of stainless rings through them to make a little indestructible book. Rings can be found in craft sections of Big W or any office supplier who carries binding equipment. I use stainless because they are non toxic.

It’s also been a great present for my kids because they can see themselves in the books with friends and family. It also are great keepsakes for them to show their own kids and tell them the stories.

Have fun