baby's first scrapbook

One of the attractions for many scrapbook artists is that the craft incorporates both art and creativity with your personal stories about your life and even your family's. For many scrapbookers, one of the essential projects to undertake is the scrapbook album for your baby. Not only will it commemorate your precious little one, but it is an exciting work of progress that can be updated with each major event of your child's life from infancy to adulthood. Some baby scrapbooks contain not only locks of the child's hair; but even the graduation diploma from college, or the wedding invitation when your child gets married. Eventually, this project could be one of the most endearing gifts you can give to your child.

Begin with themes: For effective first baby scrapbooking layout ideas, first pick a theme. With scrapbooking, the entire world is a source of ideas. While your specific theme may be your baby, make the design more exciting by adding subthemes. For instance, for your baby boy you can mix baby themes with sporty themes like baseball or other sports. For your baby girl, you can incorporate a princess theme to make the scrapbook album extra special.

Make comprehensive layouts: Once the theme is established, choose a comprehensive layout that can be used for many design options. An important thing to remember with a first baby scrapbook layout idea is that these projects can take years to complete. Hence, it is vital that your layout should be able to accommodate various designs. Do not choose layouts which are too complex and which fill up the pages with too many details; because this may put restraints on adding photographs of different sizes in the future.

Non-intrusive designs: One technique to create simple and multi-purpose layouts for your project is to use non-intrusive designs. For instance, choose layouts whose borders are well decorated so that the rest of the page is free for whatever you wish to do with it. Use paper edgers to create simple but catchy borders and hole punchers to give the layout a uniform look without compromising too much space. Another option to look into is the creative use of ribbons as borders and frames for photographs and other scrapbook elements. These ribbons are also fancy but simple ways to map out your layout.

Ample space: The best basic layout design should be able to fit in two standard sized photographs with room for text and written messages. Also have ample space for things like your baby's hand and foot print, or maybe the first bib. For scrapbookers interested in fancier designs, you can choose albums with unique shapes. Some albums are circular, which may be a creative challenge to the scrapbook artist. Others, on the other hand, prefer shapes such as the triangles that are more complex and more fun to decorate for the seasoned scrapbook artist.

Whatever form your layout ideas take, be sure that it is something that you will enjoy over the years as you child grows.

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