What to gift a one-year-old?

Good question, right? Recently, the little Irish blessing of my family, my nephew Kaden turned the big 12 months! I love him more than words can even begin to explain, so I am going to refrain. Disclaimer: I am absolutely, positively, obsessed with my nephew, and although I may be a bit biased, believe he is the cutest baby to ever walk the earth (yes he can walk now ;).) Naturally, it is in my nature to want to do something out of the ordinary that you cannot purchase at the store, but also something that will be memorable for Kaden as well as my brother and sister-in-law. Being the Pinterest fanatic that I am, I began searching, and came across a fabulous idea – a personalized ABC book documenting the child’s first year on the planet. I took the idea, and ran with it. After all- only the best for my little Lucky Charm! (Kaden is a St.Patty’s Day Baby) Here is how it went:

First step: Before running to the craft store, I suggest you make a list of the alphabet and decide what word you will use for each letter so you know what stickers and scrapbooking accessories you will need to buy. Get creative & personal- some examples of my letters for Kaden are: A is for Auntie, C is for Chicago (that is where we are from), F is for Football, J is for Jim (two of Kaden’s Grandpa’s names are Jim), W is for Wrigley Field, etc. I also bought some ribbon, as my original idea was that I would double hole punch each page and tie all of them together (read on to find out how it really turned out 🙂 ) Be sure to get an extra sheet for a front & back cover as well.
After you make your alphabet list, compile an album on your computer of said child of photos you would like to use. Really step one and two can be interchangeable, you could match the photos to the words or vice versa. I found it helpful to be clicking through pictures while deciding on what words I would use in order to utilize the most adorable pictures of my baby nephew!
Next stop: JoAnn Fabrics. Originally I thought to get foam sheets of paper and letters because they will be 3D and fun for Kaden to look at, along with some stickers to go along with each page.
Implementation: creating each page. I like to think of myself as a bit of a seasoned scrap-booker – so I really enjoyed creating and designing each page, but let me warn you – it is very time consuming. Being the over-achiever that I am, I had a few pictures per page. If you are looking to keep the book simple, I suggest one picture per page with lots of stickers to keep it fun.
Putting it all together. I cut each 8 x 11 foam sheet horizontally in half. With the foam stickers and overload of pictures, my final product turned out to be a bit fragile. I found myself telling my mother to be careful with the pages – and then it occurred to me- this is not going to work! If I have to tell my mom to be careful – how will a one-year old be able to fully enjoy this ABC book? He won’t.
Improvisation: Lamination. I found a self-laminating role at target and laminated each page so my nephew could enjoy his gift to the fullest, and the pages would be much more durable.
Putting it all together: I found that once each page was done, the stack became much higher & thicker than I anticipated – and it would not be functional as a book -so Kaden’s Book of ABC’s quickly turned to Kaden’s Box of ABC’s. Again – this is totally up to you, this is just what worked for me. I picked up a photo box from JoAnn & decorated it a bit.

I am a visual learner, so I always like to provide pictures with my projects that I complete so you can get an idea of what will work for you as well as how my final project turned out. You will see below a few of my favorite pages I created for Kaden, pre-lamination, along with the finished project. Keep in mind, Kaden’s Birthday is on St. Patty’s Day, which explains the green & Irish Theme that I stuck with…