Several years ago, I decided it would be cool to create an album showcasing my children each year of their life. I wanted to show the change in them as they grow as well as have a place to journal a special message to each child to cherish.
The background on this album stemmed from the fact that my mother is a photographer and has been taking “portraits” of them for years. I love scrapbooking those photos so much.
But one day I was sitting there staring at some black and white photos that I took and was having major “scrappers” block. The photos were “portrait” style and I loved them very much. Probably too much. I was having trouble creating a layout around the photos, so that the photos were the center. I love the feelings that the pictures evoked. Typing my journaling was no problem. That’s when I came up with the idea to go back and take other similar photos and create one entire album of pictures of them each year.
Whenever we do take photos of the kids, we tend to take some of each child alone and always a couple together. So I decided that I wanted to create a two-page layout for each child, for each year of their life, and a two-page layout of the two of them together for each year.
Because these are my only two children, and I have no immediate plans to have anymore, I decided to begin the album from the year my daughter was born. I figure my son has three and a half years of photos of just him.
When trying to choose the papers for the album, I decided I wasn’t going to follow a set pattern. I was just going to use papers that coordinated for that year only. I knew that in 5 years when creating pages then, there was a possibility that those papers wouldn’t be available anymore, and using different papers, can seriously capture the mood of the photos anyway.
Although there are some color portraits included in the albums, I’ve tried to maintain the black and white photo theme since that year I first did them. Black and White photos tend to lend a certain element to the mood, as well as capture the child without all the distracting colors.
I now use this album to write a personal letter to each child each year about the changes in them and what I wish for them. I think this might be a favorite album around our house.
Here are sample layouts from this scrapbook:
I hope this inspires you to create something special for your children too!