Before the photos you and your kids snapped over the past few months end up in a heap in a shoebox, put together a photo-memory book to enjoy your "hot shots" all year round. It's a creative, personal way to document special times together.
Instead of using a ready-made photo album with plastic sleeves, consider using a large spiral-bound sketchbook (a giant-size drawing tablet). My kids like the large, 70-page 14-by-11-inch size for our family photos. With the sketchbook, you'll have a great deal of flexibility since there's plenty of room to jot captions under the pictures, to frame the pages with pressed flowers and to glue on ticket stubs, travel brochures and postcards.To properly mount the photos, you'll also need pre-pasted photo corners, available at office- and photo-supply stores.
Here are two creative ways to show off your photos from a different angle.
- Add a little humor to a page or two by cutting out a person's face or entire body from an extra photo (or a blooper) and superimposing it on a postcard of a monument or attraction. For example, if a person is in a unique pose, cut out the body and glue it on top of the Empire State building, Pikes Peak or a rocket ship!
- Draw a background scene with markers or crayons around a photo of friends or family members. The scene may be of places on a trip where you forgot to take a picture such as in your hotel room, riding a taxi or climbing the stairs of the Statue of Liberty. You may even be inspired to draw a scene of an imaginary place.
Use the extra pages of the photo-memory book for photos, souvenirs and drawings of future family outings, even if it's just a day trip to an apple orchard or pumpkin patch this fall. Next to the photos, decorate the page with apple prints, a pressed maple leaf or a poem. Remember to date the pages and write the children's ages so you'll remember the exact day your daughter balanced on her two-wheeler or when your second-grader sheepishly posed with a gapped-tooth grin.