“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!

Although there are endless amounts of scrapbooking supplies, tools, and embellishments available, you may come to a point where you are finding it difficult to get the right start on a particular page layout for one of your scrapbooks. Don’t worry, this happens to all of the most creative types in the world, and often it just takes something to get your mind of of the creative rut that it’s currently in.

You can find general inspiration everywhere around you, especially in advertising.  You may want to take a break and watch television but keep the general idea in the back of your mind, watching the ads for ideas.  You could also go for a nice drive and check out billboards and other advertising. On the other hand, you may want to go straight to the source and pick up some scrapbooking magazines that focus on page layout ideas and begin your project by mimicking one of the examples you like.

Don’t be afraid to just put it away all together and not think about scrapbooking for an hour or two. The ironic part is that it’s very likely that once you get your mind working on something else entirely, that’s when an idea will strike you for your scrapbooking page layout.

What about going to visit a friend? Meet someone for coffee and chat about your ideas. They might have a fresh perspective that they can share and lead you to scrapbooking bliss!

The ultimate source of inspriation will often comes from the pictures themselves if you can get your mind into it at the time. You can pull design ideas and colors from the photos, and match the backgrounds with the paper you choose, etc.  The best thing to do is not stress out about it and just have fun, take breaks, and share your ideas with others.

Scrapbooking is fun, and it is definitely a perfect hobby for Mom, but it’s important to note that scrapbooking takes commitment and can even be overwhelming when you first begin. There are endless supplies to choose from, but before you go on a scrapbooking shopping spree, there are a few basic tools and supplies you will need to become familiar with as well skills that you will need to apply to every project.

Before you get started, you will need photos. Most of us have boxes or envelopes full of photos lying around the house or stored away somewhere. Maybe you’ll only be using prints from recent years that are from your digital camera. Either way, you probably have no shortage of photos, especially if you’re a Mom or (Mom-to-be).

One thing to think about when scrapbooking with sentimental photos is that you will want to make sure to use acid-free supplies that will not damage your photos and will increase the life of your projects.

Aside from the photos, you will need a few basic tools and supplies to get started:

Paper/Album
The most obvious purchase you will make is the paper and the album (assuming you’re not creating and binding your own yet!) There are quite a few sizes of scrapbooking albums available, but just make sure you get one big enough to fit the amount of photos and accessories that you’d like to see on each page.  Typically, at least an 8″ x 11″ album is a good size to start off with. Choosing additional paper is not completely necessary with some albums, but it definitely adds a lot to the page when you have a “background piece”. Take a look at the options and see if there’s some paper that stands out and suits your project well.

Cutting Tools
You’re going to want to have a sharp pair of scissors that can cut straight lines and circles with ease. You also may want to pick up one or two specialty pairs of scissors that have scalloped edges or other designs to apply fancier cuts.

Adhesive
Even if you se an album that has a pocket style covering on the page, you will still want to glue down the photos and other accessories to secure them well. You can buy glue, but also specialty photo mounts and other adhesive accessories that will make it easier for you to create your layout without a making a mess.

Embellishments
This is where you can really spend an entire day inside a scrapbooking store. The extra tools and embellishments available to enhance your scrapbooking project are endless. Keep in mind that you do not need to add a ton of different items to a page to make it look nice. In fact, only a few is preferred as it can easily be overdone, especially when you’re just getting started.

The best way to hone your scrapbooking skills is to explore your creativity, but also to find inspiration in layouts that you can find in magazines and online. You can also attend a local scrapbooking workshop to help get you started and maybe even meet some other Moms with the same interests. The important part is to have fun.