Scrapbooking Ideas

You will want to include photos of the people and places that the child will come into contact with the soonest, explaining who or what they are. Some ideas include -- 1. everyone in the immediate household 2. extended family that will meet the child soon after coming home 3. pet(s) 4. his/her bedroom 5. the outside of the house and yard 6. the school (s)he would be attending (if of age to do so) 7. the church you attend (if you do) 8. neighborhood park or other place you will take him/her Well, that is a brief list to get you started! If the help you were looking for was more the creative kind and not the actual material to put in it, an internet search on "how to scrapbook" would surely point you in the right direction! Good luck! Jennifer

Ok, to introduce a child to a new neighborhood, you could take some pictures of your surrounding area and describe them. Like, "here's the playground down the street, kids play basketball here on summer evenings." Maybe include understood/unwritten rules of the area like "this is the house of the old recluse, don't let anything you own go on her lawn or you won't see it again!" :) You can do a page or a 2 page spread per family member with some photos and each person's information like name, birthday, and then a bunch of that person's favorite things like books, movies, colors, seasons, sounds, activities, etc. Include a picture of your house and maybe pictures of places your family likes to go a lot, like the mall, or a favorite hiking trail. You could also leave a blank page or two for the foster child/adoptee to fill out themselves with their own picture, what they like, their feelings about coming to your home, what they hope/wish for, etc. As for papers and colors, pic one or two prominent colors from the pictures you use and stick with them for decorating your page with pen color and paper. Lots of those 3D embellishments are pretty, but if you put them in your scrapbook, and it lays flat, you're going to put dents in the surrounding pages/pictures. The most important part of the whole thing besides your pictures is what you write. Don't just slap some photos in, caption them, write a paragraph about it, put in bullet points, anything. Always use photosafe materials. And NEVER EVER use photo albums with those sticky magnetic pages. Nothing will destroy your photos faster. Hope this helps! Steph

Thanks for the info, Jennifer and Steph! That really helps. But I do have a couple of questions about the family photos. Do they need to be professional portraits, or will amateur shots work? And what kind of attire is best? I've heard you need to dress professionally for these pictures but the sw didn't say. Thanks again.

I don't know what's required (i've only done these for my birthparents, don't have kids yet), but aside from that, I'd include one nice headshot (professional or not), plus a few candids so that the kid can get a feel for your personalities. having just a plain headshot doesn't tell you much about the person.

I'm guessing it doesn't have to be a professional portrait. But, I would ask the social worker and make sure that it is done the way (s)he wants it... I know there are varying opinions. It's possible that it won't matter, but I'd hate to have you invest time in something and then find out that you were expected to have it done a different way. :) Jennifer

Hi! I've been working our book for a few weeks now. Here's what I did (so far). I started out using a small book (approximately 5x7), easier for little hands to handle. I've taken pics of our house, yard, and each room of the house. I cropped some of the pics and left others full. Most of the pics were taken on my old 35 mm and developed at Sams. Each page has a description of what we do in the room or what makes it special. For example, I hung embroidered dish towels for curtains in my kitchen (my 80+ y/o aunt made them for our wedding). That statement was the journaling for that page. I organized the pictures as a tour through the house starting in the back yard and dining room (this is usually how we come home). I included pics of our dogs and have a page where 'they' say hello. The pics of them were taken with our digital and printed off the computer. On our hobbies pages, I printed off graphics from one of our graphics discs and used stickers. On the front cover, I used a great poem I found on the website listed on a lower post entitled "Waiting". It was written form the mother's point of view and I changed it to come from our point of view. I also added a couple of pages detailing our hobbies. Through-out the album I used paw-print, hand-print, and daisy stickers to add some whimsy. I still need to finish it with some of our pics, the parks nearby, and pics of the child's room (when it has a bed in it!) I'm very proud of our book. It truly is a labor of love to work on.

jwdcreations,Thank you for all the great ideas. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of the poem you mentioned? I would appreciate it. Thanks.

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