My husband's parents live on the other side of the country, so I decided to try my hand at digital scrapbooking and create a photo book of my daughter's first year (using easily available commercial software and a printing service) so that I could buy multiple copies - one for

each set of grandparents and one for us.

Here are my top tips for making your own very special album.

1. Organise your photographs

Like many new parents, I had so many photographs I almost didn't know where to start.  The first thing I did was to sort the photos on my computer into folders, one for each month. Then I knew where everything was.  It makes it much easier to do everything else, as it is simpler to find photos when you think "I remember we went to the zoo at the end of summer" and go to a month folder rather than looking through photos from the entire year. 

However it is not necessary to start at the beginning and use photos in the same order they were taken, just do pages that appeal to you and gradually work your way through your collection.

2. Have a page of photos for each major event in your baby's first year

Here are some examples: Birth and homecoming, festivals your family celebrates such as Christmas or Hannukah, first birthday party, first trip to the zoo or to visit family in another state, first long hot summer etc.  For each of these events you can have a page or two of special photographs, coupled with digital embellishments to match the occasion.  Don't forget to include a picture of the birthday cake, the christmas tree, or the cute baby animal at the zoo who stared right back at them.

3. Include photos with all the most important people in your baby's life

Parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins - and don't forget any pets you might have!  Your child will be able to look back on this book when they are older and see a slice of family history.  Make sure you have some photos of your whole family - sometimes it seems it's always mum behind the camera, and you need to be in here too.  I also included a couple of photos of cousins who live overseas, just so all the family could be included.

4. Make compilation theme pages for popular activities

I had a page for "eating" with details of my daughter's favourite first  foods, plus photos of her breastfeeding, drinking from a bottle, eating from a spoon, wearing some food, trying out finger food etc.  These photos were taken at different times during the year, so when I put them all on one page you could see how she was developing.

I had similar pages for  "sleeping" (in her bassinet, her cot, on my bed, in the pram, in the car etc), "me and my teddy" (showing it almost as big as her then gradually shrinking as she grew), "sitting" (in a box, in the sandpit, in the bath etc),  "playing with toys" and so forth.

5. Make your best pictures into feature pages

It's tempting to put as many photos onto a page as you can, but if you have some that are particularly gorgeous, give them a page all to themselves.  It provides great contrast and adds a "wow" factor at the same time.

6. Add some text

A lot of people add random text and poetry to their scrapbooking, and this can be very effective but don't forget to add something personal.  You might remember all the little details now - but you might forget some of them, and other people will love to read things like "Born at 2:35pm on a rainy Thursday afternoon in the City Maternity Hospital, three days earlier than expected and looking just like Grandpa Joe" or "Here I am taking my first steps, two weeks before my first birthday."  I included details such as the dates she first sat unsupported, stood up by herself, and got her first tooth.  I also gave her weight and length at birth and at her first birthday.

7. It all started here: the first nine months

I started my album with a photo of my husband and I, taken while I was pregnant, and images from our ultrasound scans.  I also included my due date.  You might have belly photographs or pictures from your baby shower.

8. Make use of the technology

If you're doing your album electronically, crop your photos to remove things which are not interesting (like the mess on the floor!) and resize some of your photos to add variety and show off the best ones.  I made some beautiful pages where I set one photo to be the background and then placed a few smaller photos along the bottom of the page.  Your photo book software may give you suggested layouts, but experiment until you find out what you like best.

9. Don't get too carried away with fonts and frames

To maintain a professional look, don't have more than two different sorts of frame per page (preferably per double page) and use the same font(s) throughout.  Of course you can still use a completely different font for special effect on a particular page, but don't use 6 fonts on the same page or it just looks messy.

10. Embellish with what you already have

You can download background "papers" and all manner of embellishments (bows, buttons, butterflies etc) from the web, but you can also use photos or scan items from your own home.  I  took photos of my daughter's favourite toys (on a white background) and used them to decorate pages that had pictures of her at play.  I laid all the cards she received for her birthday in a square on the floor and took a photo of it to decorate her first birthday page.  My mother made her a quilt and that had to be included too!  In the next photo book I'm going to scan in footprints.

I had a wonderful time creating my first "baby's first year" photo book and everyone who has seen it loves it too.  I'll definitely be doing the same thing again for her second year.