DIY My Family Board Book

We have family scattered all over the country, so when E was born, I wanted to give her a book that had pictures of her family so she could learn more about them and learn their names.

I took a basic board book ($.50 at Goodwill), some family photos (FREE thanks to a Walgreens special), some scrapbook paper (6/$1 at Michael's) and alphabet stickers ($7 at Michael's) and put together this My Family board book for less than $10.

 

Here's how I did it:

I started by tracing the shape of the pages of the book on the scrapbook paper. I did individual pages and not the full spreads because I wanted to keep the center clear to help the book close better. I used mod podge and a sponge brush to glue the pages to the book, and then photos to pages.

This step also involved an ice cream break. This is an important part of the process. Do it.

After the glue had dried, I used alphabet stickers to label each of the pages. I'm sure there is a much fancier way to do this, but this was certainly easy. It just took four packs of stickers to make sure I had enough of each letter.

The final step was to add a spine to the book, again using paper and mod podge. I used the scoring blade on my paper cutter to make sure the paper fit perfectly.

I still may coat the entire thing inside and out in mod podge to help ward off damage from sticky fingers and to keep all those stickers stuck. But for now, this was a simple project that I hope will help E feel connected to her family around the country.