Board Book: Part One

In my quest for home made Christmas gifts, I decided that I wanted to make an "I-Spy" type of book for my boys. After getting prices for those fancy hard-bound photo books, I quickly changed my thinking on how to achieve a sturdy, long-lasting book for my children. Here is what I came up with.

*This will be in two parts. This post will be on how to make the book-base and the later post will be on the actual "I-Spy" book that I am making. Enjoy!*

1. Purchase a board book. I wanted mine larger, so I purchased this 8x8 board book for $.88 at the Dollar Store. You can also check the D.I., yard sales or thrift stores for cheap books. 2. Starting with the cover, carefully lift off the picture. I had to peel the first two layers from my board book to get a smooth page.

3. Repeat this process until the entire book is free of pictures.

4. You know have your very own board book to do as you choose! I found that regular mod podge works the best. Use a strong glue to actually glue your photos or paper down and then use mod podge over the top. Be creative with this project--make a fun scrapbook, family history album, baby book or anything you'd like.

The BEST Family Cookbook

I LOVE receiving and experimenting with new recipes from all of my friends and family. To share my love of this with those around me, I made a family cookbook for Christmas.

As you can imagine, the cost of printing a full-color, bound cookbook with 30+ pages can become very expensive, very fast! Especially if you are making 25 or more of them like I needed to. In order to make this project a realistic (and affordable) one, I had to really rack my brain. This is what I came up with.....

A Photo Cookbook!

Occasionally, places like Inkleys will run promos and do $.05 or $.06 prints. High quality photo paper is water-resistant, wipes off easily if it gets spilled on, and is durable. It is very hard to beat $.05 for a full color cookbook page!

This is how I did it.

I emailed, called and wrote to as many family members as I could. I asked each of them for 2-3 of their favorite recipes. Once I received the recipes, I used a photo editing program and typed the recipes up and saved them as a .jpeg file.

I then created a cover for the recipe book. I used family photos for our cover, but you could do it however you'd like.

After typing all of the recipes up, I sent them to be printed. Once I received them, I put them in order in regards to main dishes, soups, breads, desserts, etc.

I then punched a hole in the top of the photos. Using a binder ring, I placed all of the pages onto the ring to secure.

That's it! This was SO fun to do and everyone loved it. My total cost per book was under $3! If anyone would like to make these for Christmas and needs help with the cover, send me a quick note! I'd be so happy to offer some help.

Time Capsule: Large

Family History has quickly become a passion in my life. I could spend hours pouring over journals, pedigree charts and photos from my grandparents and great-grandparents. I quickly realized that I haven't taken the time to create my own family story. Not really knowing where to start, I decided to have my family create their own time-capsule! For this project, we rented a canner from the Bishop's Storehouse and purchased a #10 can to put our items in. You may use any type of container you'd like--plastic, cardboard, wood, etc. Make sure the container you pick is sturdy and won't get lost easily.

Items Needed:

Sturdy container with lid

Personal documents

Anything you'd like to include!!

When we did our time capsule, we invited a few friends to join us with their families. This made it so much fun to get every one's ideas together. Here are a few items we put into our time capsule:

Hand prints: we traced each of our children's hand prints and wrote their names and ages on them.

Family Pictures: We took some quick family pictures in the backyard.

Family Facts: We wrote about each of our children and family members and highlighted any important events that were going on.

Pay Stubs: It will be fun to look back and *Hopefully* see how little we were making.

Grocery Ads: We pulled some ads from the newspaper to compare food prices.

Business Cards: We added business cards for Nick and I.

Family Budget: We put in a copy of our family budget to see where we spent our money.

Calendar: I added July's calendar to show how many activities we did in a typical week.

Other photos: We put recent photos of our family in the capsule like; pictures at the temple open house, our family reunion, the kids 6 mo, 2yr and 4yr photos, etc.

I made custom CD's for each of our families that listed our last name, the date of the time capsule and the family members names/ages. We then burned our family photos and other recent photos on the disc. This made it easier than putting actual photographs into the can, and hopefully the CD will hold up better over time.
We then packed our items gently into the can.
Nick took our cans downstairs and sealed them shut.

After our can was sealed, I took some scrapbook paper and covered the can. You can do whatever you'd like with your can---bury it, hide it, etc. We are going to place ours on the shelf with our food storage downstairs. I made a small tag to place on the can that lists the date of the time capsule so we don't forget!

That's it! This project was so much fun! If you are doing this for a family night lesson, we used the Gospel Art Book and talked about Mormon abridging the plates, Moroni hiding the plates, Joseph Smith receiving the plates and then Joseph Smith translating the plates. We then talked about the importance of record keeping. We sang a few songs, made our time capsules and had a quick treat. Hopefully our friends had a good time too! :o)

Easy Life Story

I am horrible at keeping a journal even though I understand the importance of it. In an effort to "save-face" and motivate myself to begin a journal again, I started searching for the best way to do it. This is what I came across....Printable life story pages. I am SO excited to do one of these for myself and my hubby. This blog also has a printable for teenagers. The ideas presented on this blog are AMAZING! Take some time and look over it yourself. You are sure to find a new project that you are dying to try!