How to Make a Family Scrapbook with Your Kids

Life with children is full of memorable moments and milestones. And, if you’re like many parents, you do your best to try and capture photos of everything as keepsakes for the future. But, what do you do with the photos after you’ve taken them?

Maybe you print them or have them printed. Maybe you upload them to social media. Or, maybe they sit on your camera or phone until you can find the time to do something with them. Why not turn these photos into a fun arts and crafts project for the whole family?

Scrapbooking is a fun and budget-friendly way to organize your family photos and create an album that your family is sure to treasure for years to come. Learn how to make a family scrapbook with your kids in seven easy steps.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Photographs and other mementos
• Construction paper or scrapbook paper (available at most arts and crafts stores)
• Glue or glue stick
• Safety scissors
• Pencil
• Decorative items, such as markers, crayons, stickers, stamps, glitter, stencils, etc.
• Three-hole punch
• String or ribbon
• Optional: Binder or album

Directions:

1. Decide on an overall concept or purpose for the scrapbook. This can be as simple or as inclusive as you desire. You can create a scrapbook around a particular event, such as a family vacation or your child’s graduation, or over a certain time period, such as spring 2016.

2. Group together the photos or other mementos, such as ticket stubs, you’d like to include around specific themes. For example, if you are creating a scrapbook about a family vacation, one page could be dedicated to a site-seeing tour or another memorable experience from your trip. Each grouping will become a page (or multiple pages) within the scrapbook.

3. Using the stencils and a pencil, trace fun shapes over photos, making sure that anything important to the context of the image remains within the frame. Using safety scissors, carefully cut along the traced pencil.

4. For each grouping, lay out the pictures and other items on a piece of construction paper or scrapbook paper. This is to make sure that you and your child are happy with the basic design layout and how everything will fit on the page before you start gluing.

5. Once you’re happy with the layout, glue the photos and other items to the paper.

6. When the glue has dried, let your child decorate the pages however he or she wishes. Be sure to also decorate a “title” page that describes the overall concept of the scrapbook decided in the first step.

7. After all the pages are complete, you’ll want to bind them together to create an album. Using the three-hole punch, punch holes on the left-side of each page. Bind the pages together using ribbon or string.

Optional: If you’d prefer a more polished look for your family scrapbook, an album binder can be purchased at most arts and crafts or stationery stores.