When my10 year old granddaughter was just about two years old, I had an idea for a book that I would make for her.  Who Lives Here? I wanted a book that would help her to learn to recognize the homes of her grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousin.  A learning moment as she and her mommy or daddy looked at the book with her.

I accumulated photos of the houses of  the various relatives.  Then armed with scrap booking papers and card stock, I started assembling the little book.  I also purchased laminating sheets and some comb binders.  At that time I was still working and luckily was able to avail myself to a laminator and a comb binder/punch in the office.  Those items made the project easier to do and the end product much more attractive.

First, there was a dedication to my granddaughter using one of her princess photos.

Then I laid out the pages using printed scrap book paper and coordinating cover stock.  I laminated the photos so that my granddaughter could touch the pages and not leave sticky finger prints behind.  Yes, sometimes there are sticky fingers.

On this page I inserted a photo of her younger cousin as a clue since she had never seen the home of her aunt and uncle and cousin.

Of course, I had to have a photo of my house for her to see.

On the remaining pages I included a photo of her home and photos of all the other grandparents’ homes.

On heavier card stock I set up the title page and the back cover.  I punched all the pages with the binder punch and bound them together.  And, voila – Who Lives Here? was finished.

I made a similar book for my other granddaughter.  Her book featured photos of people rather than homes.  It was entitled Who Am I? I included photos of her parents and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles.  Also I included photos of the various families’ pets.

These were such fun projects for me.  They took a little time, but the happy, warm feeling I had when they were finished was well worth the time.  The granddaughters used them and then when they were followed by little brothers, the fellows could look through the books – often with the help of a big sister.

Thank you for stopping by Grandma in the Mailbox.  I hope that you stop again for another visit.  Next week I’ll talk about putting memories together.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2012 at 8:14 am and is filed under crafts, misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.