DIY ABC & 123 Toddler Scrapbook

All parents of small children own at least one picture book containing basic shapes, colors, ABC’s and numbers.

Instead of unidentified drawings, how about a picture book with familiar faces and places created with love for your toddler?

Years ago, when my oldest was just learning how to walk, a friend showed me a very special book that she would make to give each of her children on their 2nd birthday.

I LOVED it! And though I’m not a crafty person, I knew I could conquer this challenge!

All you need is an 8X10 album – whatever fits your budget. You can see from my pictures that I started off with fancy Creative Memories albums and then went to a store bought and finally we were gifted with the album for child #4. No matter though, because it’s what goes inside that really counts!

Next you need some acid free pens, papers, stickers, adhesives and of course photos.

Let you imagination run free as you pull pictures for the album. A for aunts, P for pets, U for uncles…..

You’ll want to dedicate a page to each letter of the alphabet. Here we have “o” – opossum, orchard, oval, orange, oven mitt, octopus, oranges and ocean. Plus “p” – panda, parents, plane, purple, pig, pink, pool, pen, penguin, police car, planet, pencil, pine cone, Pooh, and pumpkin. Phew!

Finding memorable photos is a plus. This is my now 10 year old’s book. The pictures of “snow” and “snowsuit” capture the fact that she has spent a total of 15 minutes of her life playing in snow. Though she doesn’t remember it, it’s a documented fact!

This would have been the perfect place to write “siblings” under the “swing set” picture….

You’ll also want to save some room to do a fun numbers page. I only did 1-10, but, if you wanted to you could go all the way up to 20.

Don’t forget the cover page. This is a great place to add a professional photo and a personalized letter to your child.

One last note – kids can get a little rough with their album, even with the page protectors. You’ll want to supervise them with this book until they get a little older.

Have you already made your child an album of his/her own? Please leave me a link in the comments!