Baby Photo Album

There are lots of adjustments after having a baby. You get used to so many things being different, waking up at night, picking up the floor hundreds of times a day, gathering snacks, drinks and diapers before leaving the house, lots more laughing and playing, many more moments of pure joy. I will say, however, that those little moments of joy generally do not occur during a long car trip with a baby.


For every car trip we prepare the standard emergency food (in P's case it's blueberries and goldfish), an array of new toys to inspect, a stack of familiar books, and Baby Beluga on repeat (must I say ad nauseum?). After these have lost their magic, what to do? I was lying awake making plans for a trip we took a couple of weeks ago and worrying about how to entertain Baby P. My thoughts kept gravitating to the idea of a soft, baby photo book. P enjoys books and loves seeing faces he recognizes in pictures. Because we live away from family right now, it's nice for him to be able to know everyone when we visit. There are probably places you can buy these (in fact, I just saw one in the One Step Ahead catalogue), but I wanted to choose my own fabrics and it didn't seem like a complicated project. I was right about how much P would like it. Look at this reaction to the first competed page (you'll notice it's lacking a cover, etc...).

 It was a little time consuming (especially if you make your own bias tape like I did), but it was definately worth it and I love that I can change out the pictures periodically. The photos are covered by plastic, protecting them from grubby, Blueberry fingers. It holds five 4x6 size pictures and two (approximately) 2x3's.

Here are a couple more views, I am thinking of creating a tutorial sometime soon.

I'm wild about that colorful chevron print, it's "Remix" by Robert Kauffman.

I was really in a hurry for this, I think it would be cute to do felt applique letters or add another photo sleeve to the front. I just handstitched the letters and added big, fat French knots to them.

This is our dog Leo, Baby P's best buddy. He LOVES pulling back the flap and seeing him. The pictures aren't exactly the right size, I was cutting/folding the edges in the car. I had the book done as we were leaving for our trip, but I didn't have time to put the pictures in.

This was a fun and super rewarding project. P carries it around the house and is thrilled when I plop down on the floor with him and say, "Where's Grammy?," "Where's Jordan?" "Where's Mac?" and let him point. This would be a sweet baby shower or toddler birthday gift as well.