Baby C's Adoption Scrapbook

To celebrate National Adoption Month, I thought it would be fun to make Baby C an adoption scrapbook...

A book JUST for him/her to look through whenever s/he wants that details how we became a family.  Not a fancy baby book, just a bright, colorful book designed for a child's eyes that might help answer the question, "Mommy, where did I come from?"

I LOVE to scrapbook!  I usually give hand-made scrapbooks to all of my friends expecting babies, but for those I have the luxury of traveling to Iowa and taking full advantage of my crafty mother's art room.  She has everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) a crafter would ever want!  The warm yellow walls are accented by black and white storage cases holding matching red, white, and black boxes, bags, and drawers of stickers, stamps, paints, papers, ribbon, fabric, Cricut cutters (yes, that's a plural there) and cartridges, etc. etc.  It's fabulous - a real haven when you're creating.

This time I knew I wouldn't be able to use my mom's supplies.  My sister, M, had graciously allowed me to borrow her Cricut and all the cartridges she had; but I was going to be on my own for everything else.  Luckily, I had been collecting paper, stickers, and adhesives whenever I could get my hands on a 40 or 50% coupon for Michael's or Hobby Lobby; and then there was the fantastic 700+ piece scrap-booking kit my sister-in-law C had given me for Christmas two years back - I was hoping all of this would come in handy.

I ran to Michael's, 50% off coupon in hand to buy the brightest, cutest, child's eye catching-est scrapbook I could find.  When I got there, nearly everything in the scrapbook section was already 40% off, including the scrapbooks themselves.  My eyes were instantly drawn to this one; so, I had to get it:

Cute right?  It's by Amanda Blu.

I chose this book mostly because it was bright and fairly gender-neutral since we won't know if we've been matched with a boy, girl, or twins for about 6 or 7 more months; so, this seemed like a fairly basic (yet fun!) place to start.

Next, I got out my limited scrap-booking supplies; and tried to come up with a plan of attack.

In a day and a half, I was able to finish the book.  It's not the uber-fancy scrapbooks I usually do - in fact, it's VERY simple; but I think that's a good thing since this is for a child, after all.  I wanted to highlight all of the major moments in our family-making process; while still keeping it simple and straight-forward enough that a child could understand it.  Here's a peak at what I did:

"Becoming a Family"

"Waiting"/"Dreaming"

"Referral Day"/"The Journey Begins"

"Meeting You"/"Love & Joy!"

"Explore"/"Souvenirs"

"Together"/"Happiness Is" (I can easily add another baby here if needed)

"Cherish"/"Loved"

"Going Home"/"Dog Brother" (can't leave Eagan out! :-)

"Family"/"Home Sweet Home"

"We Are Family"/"Happy"

And finally..."Forever Family"

Again, NOT fancy - I'll do more elaborate baby book once the wee one(s) is home - there's not lots of cut-outs or stickers or time-consuming stamp techniques; but I think it does a good job of using color and pattern to explain how adoption will bring us together as a forever family. 

I had so much fun, it made me want to do more (with better equipment, obviously)!  I wonder if anyone would want to buy such a thing for their own child to explain their adoption?  Ah well, if not, I'll just have to keep making books for friends!

All the Love in the World,
*mandie*