“Open up. Here comes the airplane. Zoom! Zoom!” We’ve all played that game with our children. Now that a bottle is not enough for baby, the doctor will tell you that you can add a bit of solid food like cereal, fruit or veggies to their meal to fill them up. Using a small coated spoon, scoop up some cereal and touch the spoon to their lips. If they open up to accept it, baby is ready to have solid foods. Now the fun begins.

When my son could sit up on his own, I fed him from a high chair. He liked the freedom of being able to look around. A few times I made the mistake of leaving the bowl of cereal or strained fruit on the tray while I answered the telephone. Imagine the mess I found when I got back. Sometimes he would smack the bowl and more food ended up on me than in him. Keep a wet dishcloth handy.

Picture Ideas:

Feeding time is always fun time when baby starts on solid food. Buy yourself an apron if you don’t already own one. Mommy and daddy should take turns feeding and photographing baby.

Don’t forget to snap a picture of baby’s messy face and your messy apron. Every time you introduce a new food into baby’s diet, take a picture to capture the faces he makes.

Scrapbooking Ideas:

Find cute stickers and foam decorations of fruits and vegetables to use for your scrapbook page. Try to find scrapbook paper with a bib design. Glue the food randomly around the page.

Crop your pictures in the shape of the food baby is eating in the picture: a box of cereal, peaches, pears, sweet potatoes, etc.

Baby has moved on to solid foods. Now it’s time for teeth!

Scrapbooking is amazingly fun and a wonderful creative outlet. However, sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the creative flow and end up with mistakes glued to their page that have messed up their page layout. There are a few things to be sure you check for as prepare your layouts before you finalize them in order to avoid mistakes and ensure that you the best project possible.

That most common mistake while working on a scrapbooking project seems to be a spill of some sort. It may slip your mind while you have everything spread out and just made yourself a nice fresh cup of coffee, but it’s good practice to keep food and drink separate from your scrapbooking supplies and work in progress.

Another common mistake in scrapbooking projects is not noticing spelling and grammar mistakes.  A tip that usually works well is to write out the title, note, or message on a piece of paper first. Proof read it, and then copy it from the paper as you write it out on the final scrapbook page.

If you happen to make a scribble or a scratch with a writing tool, those can often be touched up with a small sticker or other embellishment.

Sometimes a mistake is a good thing. Ask anyone creative genius and they’ll tell you that often some of their best ideas come by making a small error and causing the original idea to take a turn for the better. On your scrapbooking page, you might accidentally drop the wrong embellishment on the page but end up liking it better.

In some cases you could actually add more to the page and joke about your mistake with writing or embellishments somehow.

All types of things can happen, so don’t take it too seriously if you make a boo boo. Just fix it the best you can if you have to, and enjoy yourself.