Home-made Baby Book

So I realized the other day that we didn't have a baby book for talon like we'd had for Alexis. Like to put info and pictures and mementos in, like the hospital bracelet, family info, etc.
So I went online to find one.
And Oh.Em.Gee.
Why are they so darn expensive? The cheapest one was $25 (at Target) only available online, with no pictures of the inside, and the cover was bland and generic. The average price anywhere else online seemed to be around $35, and on Etsy they averaged at around $60!

So, my brilliant husband asked me why I didn't just make one myself? And I thought, hey, that's an awesome idea!
I spent an hour and a half that night coming up with pages for the book (birth stats, all about mom, all about dad, the day you were born, etc) some of which I found inspiration for online, and some that was just information I wanted to put in.
I also went online and had coupons texted to my phone for Michaels, our local craft store, because I knew that that was where I would get most of what I needed.

The next day we headed out to run our errands, Michaels being one of them, and we were surprised at how few actual baby albums they had. Well for boys anyway. They seem to have plenty of everything for girls everywhere we go, but for boys? Well, that's a different post in and of itself...
So we decided to really do it ourselves.
I found a beautiful turquoise blue photo album with no embellishments or pattern, just a pocket for a photo on the cover.
The I found stick-on letters in burlap, a small pack of multi-colored jute twine, matching mod-style flowers (not feminine looking at all), and the best part, a stick-on fabric banner that matches the banners we made by hand for the baby shower! One of those banners is going into the kids room, so this album is going to match, and look great displayed on a shelf or dresser top.
I also found a 180 sheet card stock paper pack that was perfect. I searched forever and finally found one that was just colors and modern patterns.

The album and paper were both Recollections brand and were 40% off! The little embellishments for the cover were about $4 each so those added up quickly. I used a 40% off coupon for one of them. I'm wishing I had waited until today because I happen to have a coupon (starting today) for 20% off your entire order including sale items! So that would have actually saved me a bundle. But I was anxious. :)

I started by laying out all my finds on the table. Then I arranged and rearranged until I had the cover looking how I wanted.
I love how it turned out! You'll have to excuse the poor photo quality. I take all my pictures on my iphone, no fancy camera's in this house!

In order to get the jute twine to look how I wanted it too I had tied it around the cover, just to see how it would look. Then I liked it so much I didn't want to disturb it, so I just hot-glued it right down as it was. The knot in the middle was a little ugly, so I used one of the owl clothespins I bought in the Michaels sales bin (for $1.50) pulled the felt owl off carefully, and hot-glued it right over the knot.

Then I took my "pages" I'd printed out and my giant paper pack and did it the easy way. Slide in a pattern, then a page on top. Only one is glued down and that is because it has two small captions for spots for the hospital bracelet and footprints. The last few pages are still blank but I have captions all ready and they will be filled with pictures. The fonts I used for the basic pages can be downloaded for free, they are Duality (the font in gray), and Ribbon (in colors).

I plan on putting a picture of Talon in the cover but for now I decided to slip an ultrasound photo in.

I also created a subway-art style print that I am going to put in the kids room, but I thought it would also make a good first page of the book! The fonts are all downloaded free, they are Sketch Rockwell, Boston Traffic, and again Duality. I just used my Microsoft Works program and took my time fitting them all to take up about the same amount of space. The dots separating the sections are periods done in the Boston Traffic font, but on paint so that I could get them to do what I wanted them too. Then I inserted them like clip-art.

I really love how it turned out and how personalized it is! What do you think?