How to Make Your Child the Star of Their Very Own Book!

Young children are fascinated by photos of babies, they are equally as fascinated with photos of themselves. Here's a great idea to promote family time, reading skills and entertain your child all at once.

What You Will Need To Make This:

* A plain - covered scrapbook. (I got mine in the craft dept of Wal-mart)
* Photos of your child or children to star in the book
* An original poem or story starring or about the child or children in the book
* Tape, or clear mounting squares, if you wish it to be archival quality
* Scissors
* Printer or marker and paper

Optional Supplies You Might Like To Use:

* Stickers
* Decorative paper (I used scrap booking papers and Vellum)
* Expansion pack of pages to add to the album
* Die cuts
* Pop dots
* Ruler

How To Make It:

1. Start off by going through some of your family photos. Do you see a reoccurring theme in them? Perhaps your family has a favorite vacationing area to go to, or your child has a favorite toy they always play with? If you find a theme, pull those photos aside and see if you can make a little story or poem around them. If you find you have no photos that have a theme, or you simply do not want to be bothered sifting through old photos, you can do the same, only take new photos instead. Maybe you take your child who will star in the book to their favorite zoo and make a story up about him or her with her favorite animals, or with their friends or toys. Whatever you want, the sky is really the limit here!

2. Once you have decided what photos you want to use, make up your little poem or story. It can be as long as you want, or as long as you are provided pages in your scrapbook. Please be sure that you or a friend write the story or poem, to avoid copyright infringement on someone else's intellectual property! I made a little story around my son's love for animals and zoos and his quest through the 'jungle' (represented by zoo animals and jungle themed papers) asking where his beloved stuffed giraffe, Bubblegum had run off to. The photos I chose were ones through the years of Gideon with various animals and some of his favored animals as well.

3. Plan how you will place the photos in the book. Will you place them as they are without cropping? Will you crop? Will you crop in appropriate shapes? What kind of papers (if any) will you use as a background? Stickers or no? What about die cuts or any other decorative accents? Plan an estimated area and space that your text will take up and work your photos around that spot.

4. Lay out the pages as you are planning to create them, but don't tape or cut anything just yet. Just lay them down to be sure you like this layout. If you find you aren't quite happy with the layout, rearrange it until you are.

5. Once you are sure you like your layout begin to cut and tape it all into place. Remember that children like different textures and interactive books just as much as they like photos of babies and of themselves. How might you incorporate some textures and interaction into your book? Some of the things I used are: Textured scrap booking papers that resemble the skin of a snake (I made a large snake out of this paper,) a die cut giraffe assembled with pop dots, and a flannel board inserted inside of the front cover of the book.

6. Decide if you will handwrite or print out your text. Will you use a plain block of paper, or will you cut it into shapes? Decorated paper, plain or vellum? Whatever you like best. I used vellum pieces cut into varied shapes for my text and I wrote it by hand in a fine lined Sharpie marker.

7. Insert your text into the spots that you designated for it to go in step three.

8. Take a good look at your book. Look at it as a whole cover to cover. Are you satisfied, or does it seem like it is lacking something? If it's lacking add what you think it needs until you are satisfied with the look. Keep in mind things that your child likes while decorating it as well as the overall theme and the theme of each photo and page.

9. Choose a nice paper or design for the front and back covers and the spine of your book, and decide on a title. Decorate and title your book accordingly. You can also decorate the inside of the front and back covers to cover the overlapped areas where the paper used on your covers wrapped around the edges of the book.

10. All finished! Now, go find somewhere quiet and watch as your child delights in seeing their own adventure unfold before their eyes.

Alternate Options For Making A Book:

For those of you who are unable or unwilling to spend so much manual labor and time to create this book by hand can make something similar on sites like Tabblo and Kodak. These sites offer an interface where you can upload photos, add text and even add some designed papers as a background. They will professionally print the book for you for a reasonable cost.

Of course there are pros and cons to any method you choose to have your book made. Carefully weigh the options and decide what you really want from the book, for your child, your time and money invested, and make your decision based on your findings.

Hint, Tips, and Suggestions:

* If you would like to have your photos displayed in different shapes, but do not wish to cut your photo, you can actually cut the background paper into the shape that you want instead. All you need to do is to place the photo in the position you wish it to appear on the page. Take a scrap booking shape template and lay it right over the photo. Adjust the template over the photo until the inner area of the shape looks like you want your photo to appear. Now tightly hold the template with one hand and with the other slide the photo out. Now trace the shape directly onto the background paper. (You might wish to either do this in pencil or to do it on the back of the page.) Cut out the shape and tape your photo behind the page. Now your photo will look like it was cut in a shape, but it's still untouched and fully intact.

* If you choose to include a flannel board, you can make some of the key characters and items as flannel board pieces. Your child will delight in recreating the story quietly with their pieces. This also will work with photographs used as flannel board pieces. Just take some tacky glue and glue the photos to some iron on interfacing or a piece of felt to make your pieces.

* Many children love lift-the-flap books. Maybe you could incorporate a couple flaps or doors that your child can open for a surprise!

* If you are unable to locate a plain scrapbook, or if you just want something larger and more inexpensive, use a 3-ring binder. You can buy one of the ones with clear panels on the front, spine and back and use that for your cover. For the pages buy a pack of top loading sheet protectors and design your book!

* When considering your story plot or your poem subject think about things your child likes, or a moral or lesson you would like them to learn. You can even do it as an educational book, teaching your child colors, shapes and more.

* When plotting and writing the text to your book, keep in mind your child's attention span. If they have shorter attention spans you will want to keep your story or poem short and to the point. You might also want to add many photos, decorations and interactive pages to keep their interest levels high.

However you decide you would like to make your book, may you and your child have many warm snuggly nights together reading it!