New Store!

Whew!! My life has been a whirlwind the last couple of weeks... I'll post about all of those comings and goings a little later, but for now I wanted to tell you all that I have a store!!

Granted, the only product in that store, for now at least, are the Baby Book Milestone Templates. I'm proud to finally introduce....

These are a set of 12 layered templates featuring enlarged numbers created in .TIFF format, sized 12 inches by 12 inches. Use these templates to create a one-of-a-kind baby book for each month of your child's first year. These templates are easy to use. Simply:
- change the colors of the number and "you"
- enter in your personalized text (milestones, facts and tidbits)
- add your child's height and weight
- save, and either print from home, or send to your favorite professional print shop.

I tried to make them as easy to work with as possible, but I'll be back tomorrow with a tutorial on how to use the templates in Photoshop.


I'm so excited that they are finally available, that I'm offering them at a special discounted price for the first couple weeks. You can get the whole set for just $11.99 - only about a dollar per template! If you're interested, check 'em out!

UPDATE... I've now added templates for your baby's second year!

You can see what I've done with these templates for both of my children here. 

Avery: 6 Months

I've gotten several requests for a template to put this milestone book together, so I've decided to make them available for purchase. I'm in the process of refining them and figuring out how to put together an online "store." But for those of you who are interested... would you want more than the first 12 months? Leave a comment!

Avery: 4 & 5 Months

Okay. I have seriously turned into such a flake!! First, I forgot to post Avery's 4 month baby book stats until it was almost time to post her 5 month schtuff, and then I'm hit and miss on which pics I scrap. Well.. maybe I'll get them all finished by the time she's married. ;)

At 5 months... (I haven't scrapped these photos yet)

Avery: 3 Months

I haven't had time to scrap Avery's three month page, and I can't decide between two photos anyway. Maybe you can help? Which one do you like better?

I think this one shows her personality and how she uses her little chubby toes to scoot up, but her hand is all blurry.

And I like this one because she snacks on those fingers of hers almost constantly, but Justin doesn't like it as much because her face is hidden.

Avery:

• has started to laugh a little. It's still pretty rare, but we love hearing it!
• "talks" a LOT! 
• is so happy. She gives smiles to anyone, and she's generally pretty content as long as her tummy is full and her diaper is clean.
• hates a dirty diaper. She gets pretty mad if you don't change her right away!
• is starting to find her hands. She hasn't "seen" them quite yet, but she grabs more and tastes her fingers all the time.
• uses her toes to scoot her body up. 
• still loves and requires the swaddle to fall asleep.
• never went bald (yay!). And the hair on top is growing like a weed! 
• likes when we sing to her... but she prefers lullabies and Primary Songs over upbeat Christmas tunes.
• has started to stay awake for longer periods of time.
• is already social. She wants to be where the action is, and would rather face out toward the crowd then snuggle with me. And she's totally content to lay on the floor by herself - as long as we are in the room with her.
• has figured out how to spit bubbles. 
• can sleep a 9 hour stretch at night!! (Not every night, but it's happening more often. Now I just need to go to bed when she does.)

Now.. to edit photos and blog about all the holiday festivities...

Avery: 2 Months

Ack!  I feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up. Good thing I'm just doing monthly photos and milestones...

Anyway, we are eating this little gal up. She is SO fun! Honestly, I really think I'm enjoying her more than I did Harvey when he was tiny. I just wanted him to grow; to roll over, to giggle, to crawl, to walk. Why? Now I have to chase him everywhere! I'm totally content for Avery to just lay and coo at me. It really does melt my heart.

Here are the next two pages for her book:

(and repeated for the blog book...)

Avery:

• is such a happy baby.
• doesn't like having a dirty diaper. (What a change from Harvey who could care less. Will that make potty training her easier??)
• doesn't like being left alone in a room, and will let us know!
• loves both the bouncer and her swing.
• smiles super easily. Especially when I do raspberries (is that what it's called when you vibrate your lips?)
• still love to sleep. We are lucky if we can keep her up for more than 1.5 hours and she sleeps between 6 - 8 hours at night!
• loves to be swaddled, and can't fall asleep unless she's tightly wrapped up. 
• has technically grown out of her 3 month clothes, but I can't part with them yet so I'm still squishing her into them. 
• loves "talking" to us. It's kind of like an adorable Chewbacca.
• still hasn't mastered the burp. It takes forever to burp her. 
• likes riding in the car. Most of the time if she is fussy after we strap her into the car seat, she'll quiet right down after the car starts moving. Sometimes she gets fussy again when we stop at a red light.
• loves listening to Justin's whistle.
• likes binkis, but doesn't have to have them all the time like her brother did.
• loves taking baths.
• loves to snuggle.

Avery: 1 Month

Holy Moly! Where does the time go? I can't believe my baby is already a month old!

After it was too late for Harvey, I discovered monthly stickers to add to a onesie each month for a photoshoot and I loved the idea. Then, I saw that Young House Love produced the same effect with Photoshop, and I knew that's what I wanted to do for my future children. Plus they used adorable patterned fabric pieces for a background.

Here is Avery's first month photo:

And I'll do the same pages in her baby book as I made for Harvey's book:

Lastly, here is the baby announcement that made it on the back of our Christmas Cards... I love how it turned out!!

Operation: Baby Book

**These templates are now available for purchase in my store, scroll to the bottom of this post to purchase! Also, I have a tutorial on how to use them in Photoshop (HERE), and another tutorial on how to use them in GIMP (HERE), a totally free downloadable program similar to Photoshop.**

When I was pregnant with Harvey, I found this fun and funny pregnancy journal: The Belly Book. I adored it. 

This book includes pages for each doctor's visit, a monthly spot for cravings/aversions, ultrasound pictures, one page for each week with a spot for a picture and journaling, pages for why and how we chose his name, the labor and delivery story, and MUCH more.

Plus it does it all with a humorous twist:

• Is the baby a girl? a boy? or a boxer?
• What is my current disposition? sunshine and happiness? partly sunny with a chance of showers? hormonal hurricane?
• I'm starting to feel like.... a fertility goddess? Humpty Dumpty? 

I thoroughly enjoyed filling it out. And no - I didn't take a belly pic EVERY week. In fact, some weeks are empty. Or sometimes I added a pic of other stuff going on; the house we just purchased, or Justin and I in our Halloween costumes. Sometimes I filled in the prompts, and other times I crossed them out and used the lines for journaling about other things.

However, when I started looking for a baby book... they all included things my Belly Book already took care of: how and why we chose his name, baby shower momentos, how we prepared for the baby, a place for his birth announcement, hand/foot prints, etc. And I didn't want a duplicate book...

So, I decided I would "make my own." And well, anyone with kids knows that it's much easier said than done to keep up with something like that when it's just a fill-in-the-blank-er. I kind of feel like I dropped the ball because I didn't even have a plan.

However. This blog saved my butt. I DID take monthly photos of the kid and posted them with a list of all the current fun/embarrassing milestones he was going through. Plus, I got lucky and made it onto a couple of creative teams which forced encouraged me to keep up with scrapbooking pictures of the kid.

Here's what I've done with the milestone lists: (I used the fonts Century Schoolbook and Century Gothic, as well as Ali Edwards Hand Drawn Brushes for the 'you'.)

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I'm not sure what happened around 3 months, but I didn't have a list on my blog. Maybe I'll try to compile one from photos and videos, but maybe not. My plan is to insert these pages on the opposite side of his "montly photoshoot layouts" in his scrapbook. The colors match his outfits, or the paper I used, etc. 

I flipped through a couple of baby books at Walmart, and I found a few ideas that my belly book didn't include:

• a family tree
• immunization fill-in-the-blank page
• what things cost (when he was born)
• a letter from Mom / Dad / Grandparents

Besides my monthly stat pages, the regular story-told scrapbook pages and the above list, am I missing anything? What else should go in a Baby Book? What systems have you put in place for recording your children's memories?

These pages are now available for purchase in the following bundles: