Scrapbooking with my Daughter

My daughter, Honey, is three and a half… she has the attention span of a gnat (don’t they all at that age?).

I have waited for her to be old enough to start to be interested in scrapbooking. It’s felt like a long wait, but then I’m not known for my patience! Bit of a “quick fix” merchant me!!

Anyway, I was forced to stay at home with her the last couple of days as she had been unwell over the weekend and still with a sore throat, I kept her off nursery and rearranged my work (got to go back tomorrow… sigh!) Of course, we have a couple of week days together every week anyway, but we usually have to do “the shopping” or such like, but because I didn’t want her to “over do it” we had to stay at home.

So I decided to try to get her interested in doing a paper bag album with me. I had actually already compiled the papers, embellishments and photos, etc ready to start.

The subject matter of the pictures was my daughter (photos of themselves always go down well with kids don’t they!!) and the time we visited family who were kind enough to “borrow” a little white pony for Honey to ride for the few days we were there (they have their own horses).

I kept the page layouts simple and because I had already thought about the materials with which to build the album I had everything to hand and so could keep the momentum going and therefore the interest.

There were a number of “stickers” (her favourite) from which she could choose, she had fun using the Dymo (I bought a replacement recently which (if you put the batteries in!!) will say each letter as you press the handle – brilliant for kids!).

She learnt what “rub-ons” are and how to use them – well with a little help, of course – how to use my paper trimmer, she already is quite adept with scissors, so she was “allowed” to use grown up scissors – what kudos!

We started on Monday and did the first 2 pages and then she’d had enough. Then yesterday, she said, “Can we do some more scrapbooking please Mummy?”

Well you can imagine my delight can’t you!!!!!

So we managed to do another 4 pages! Now of course, she wafted in and out of direct “hands on” creation, but stayed with me most of the time. I just need to finish it off, but now she can show it to her auntie (with whom we stayed with the little white pony) and genuinely say that she made some of the book.

It was really nice to engage her in something we both liked to do. I really hope she takes to scrapbooking as she gets older. I think maybe scrapbooking will become something that brings us together… how nice is that?!