A Quick Little Album For A Special Little Girl

Hey there! I know it's been quieter on the blog lately. I was doing so well for a while. I was creating more, which meant that I had more to share. Then I got a new three month old baby in the daycare, and the ninth month old baby decided he would only sleep if I'm holding him. And that, my friends, is when my life apparently fell apart. Lol. Anyways. 

One of my little daycare girlies, Luna, had her last day with me this past Friday. I started watching her exactly three years and one week ago, when she was not quite nine months old. And now, just months away from turning four years old, she's moving on. Literally, as they are moving to another state. 

I had this idea to make her a little album, so that she could have some photos of her friends to remember them. I actually had the idea for a few weeks, but it wasn't until the night before her last day that I decided to actually throw something together. 

I had picked up a little 4x4" album from WRMK a few weeks ago, just in case I did decide to create the album. I knew that I didn't have a ton of photos, so I wanted something small. I also knew that I had a bunch of little 2x2" photos already printed that I could incorporate into this size album, with the little divided page protectors. 

I started the album with one of those divided page protectors. I had some crochet hearts from Bella Blvd sitting out, that I had torn off of other projects. Since they didn't have the adhesive tabs on the back anymore, they were easy to slip into the pockets. I then machine stitched along the openings to close each pocket up so the hearts don't fall out. 

I followed the opening page with the "lucky" 4x4" clear card that I found in my stash (from Heidi Swapp) and slipped into a full page protector. I honestly don't have many photos of Luna. One reason being that she was always part time, so she wasn't around every day. And one reason being that she didn't really like me to take her photo. But I did have this really cute one from when she was smaller, so it's the main 4x4" photo of her in the album. 

I included just two 4x4" journaling cards in the album, and wrote my journaling by hand on both. Mostly because it was quicker, as I would always prefer printed journaling for sure. 

I then printed out one 3x4" photo of each of the kiddos that have been her with her over the last three+ years. All of the 2x2" photos in this album were all phone photos that I had printed a while back thru the FreePrints app. I didn't have a plan for them at the time, so I just went thru the pile and tried to find two photos to go along with each of the kids. 

I don't take that many photos of the kids these days. Not like I used to years ago, when I would have tons of photos of them, month after month. Abby here was one kiddo that I just didn't have many photos of, as she moved on a while back to preschool, and is only here during the summer. So I just included some random photos next to her photo.

When it came to filling the pockets without photos, I ended up turning to my Bella Blvd stash. While most of the collections do contain a few 2x2" cards that can be cut out from one of the patterned papers, some of the older collections had Candid Cards, which contained lots of smaller 2x2" cards to choose from. 

Most of the cards, I simply slipped in the pocket and that was it. There were a few cards that I did add an enamel heart too, because they were simpler cards that seemed to need a little something extra. 

Next to the 3x4" photos of the kids, I added a piece of star patterned paper. I actually cut 4x4" pieces of white cardstock for these pockets, and adhered both the photo and the patterned paper piece, and then machine stitched along the edge of the photo.

I found a coordinating tab to go with each kid's photo, pulling them from the Paper Pieces from some older collections. I tucked those under the side of the photo before doing the machine stitching. 

I also added each child's name to their photo, using some alpha stickers. Easy peasy.

This is a super simple album. Like I said, I threw it together in just about two hours, start to finish. I kept thinking I should add more, to bulk it up a bit. But in the end, I decided it was just enough and that Luna would love it. 

I snapped this photo of Luna, and three of the other kiddos that were here on her last day. These are the four older kids, and the ones she always played with the most. So it was nice that they were all together on her last day. I printed it out during their naptime, and slipped it in the last page of the album. 

Luna's mom said that Luna loves her album. She told me that she was trying to get a photo of it, but Luna wouldn't let go of it, and that she even slept with it Friday night. So cute. I'm really going to miss that girl.

Comments

[Carii]

such a cute idea, looks awesome and was probably acutally pretty quick to throw together!

[Lisa Evans]

great little album. i have thought of making something like this for each kiddo's birthdays. they are so excited after their birthdays, they like to kind of relive the birthday for several days after.