Cut, Crop and Create

Birthing a Scrapbook Club

By Laura Cone

Baby has not been born yet, but already you may be wondering about the color of her hair, how long it will take before she takes her first step and the first word she will speak. The answers to most of your questions may one day be artfully displayed with photographs in the shape of bottles, a footprint and a lock of hair in your baby's first year scrapbook album.

When you are new to the scrapbook hobby, it helps to find inspiration by getting together with other people who are at the same point in their lives and share the same goals.

Whether you start your own scrapbook club while pregnant or join an existing club, being with other expectant mothers can relieve some of the anxiety that goes along with pregnancy.

Patsy Smith, a labor and delivery nurse for 20 years, hosts a scrapbook club in her home in Oklahoma City once a month. Smith says her scrapbook club is not about organizing a collection of dusty notes, pictures, clippings and certificates it's about preserving precious memories. "It's very important to start a scrapbook from the minute you are pregnant because all of those thoughts you forget," Smith says. "They grow up so fast you don't remember. It's best to put not only the pictures in the scrapbook, but you need to put your thoughts and feelings because later on when you are gone all they are going to have are the memories of you."

Smith, who has one grown daughter and two grandchildren, says starting a scrapbook club is simple. Members of her club bring their own supplies or may purchase supplies from her scrapbook store called My Pages In Time.

She says many women are more likely to join a scrapbook club when they are pregnant because they want to create a baby's first year scrapbook album. Smith, who hosts the scrapbook club meetings on Saturdays from 1 to 6 p.m., says pregnant women often create and decorate pages ahead of time.

After Baby is born, you may paste down photographs to pages based on predetermined themes. Some of the questions you may want to write on pages include who attended your baby's birth and what does your baby's birth mean.

"When you are pregnant, you can record ultrasound pictures [and]your thoughts when you first found out you were pregnant," Smith says. "We have women who put their pregnancy test in their scrapbook. Then, of course, right after the baby is born you put in all the pictures from the birth, who was there, a lock of the baby's hair, the baby's bracelet from the hospital, the baby's footprints and a copy of the baby's birth certificate."

Want to see more?

• Scrapbooking: Creatively Keeping Track of Baby's First Year
• Your Child's First Birthday Party: Learning to Identify and Nurture Little Feelings
• You'll find more fun activities here.
• Talk about it!