Hand make your own, personalized alphabet book for your children (or have them make one for themselves)! If you scrapbook, collect stickers, have a stack of magazines that you have access to, old greeting cards waiting to be recycled, stamps, etc and time, this craft is perfect for you to do either for your children or with your children (depending on their ages and abilities).
Items Needed:
*small scrapbook, photo album or binder (I snagged a clearanced kids scrapbooking kit for under $10)
*at least one full sticker set of the alphabet (once again, these is something you can get on clearance upon occasion, I have a stash since I scrapbook) and/or cut out letters from magazines/newspapers
*pictures of things–any combination of cut outs, stickers, cropped photos, etc
*odd scraps of paper, ribbon, yarn, etc as well as glitter, markers, stamps
*something to make things stick–this project is (ideally) meant to be something nice and keepable…you might want to conside archival quality adhesives–glue dots, photo tabs, etc
* (OPTIONAL) Photo protective pages (if you are using a scrapbook, you may be able to find ones meant for your pages, if you are using a full size binder, page protectors are fairly easy to find, and there is always the option of laminate.
Directions:
This is pretty self explainatory. Its an alphabet book…lol. Some things to consider:
*The alphabet has 26 letters, so you need around 13 pages (for one side per letter). The kit I purchaced only had 12 pages, so I was forced to consider which letters could share a page (I chose U/V and W/X). If you have more pages, you might also consider a 2 page lay-out for letters like R, S or T or including CH or SH words.
*Start collecting letters, pictures, etc BEFORE you start the book. Get a couple of envelopes and keep up a collection.
*Consider including pictures of family members, the planets, animals, and also more unconventional things–our Q page has a quarter glued on it, or you could make a cloud from cotton balls on the C page.
*Layout each page ahead of time, and then assemble. If you think you might want to add more items as you find them (this is how I made mine), be sure to leave some room for layering and whatever you might come across.
*If you use self-stick laminate, rather than page protectors (or a termal laminate) remember that it works best when your pages are flat–3D effects don’t look as ‘finished’ if that is important to you (the advantage is that if your child is like mine, they can’t peel off the stickers).
bay witch musings 