My husband and I have been going through the process of adopting a child internationally. We are adopting a 3 year old little boy from a region in Russia that requires two trips to complete the adoption. On trip one, we will meet him and then one month later return to go to court and bring him home. That month will seem very long to both us and our new son. To help him learn about his new family and remember us while we are gone, I decided to make a special mini-scrapbook to leave with him in the orphanage. As I worked on this book, I began to realize that a scrapbook like this one would be a wonderful project for any parent and child.

A mini-book about your child can be a fabulous self-esteem builder. It is also something that you can work on together. The most important tip to keep in mind when making a quick book about your little one is to “keep it simple.” I decided to use a 6”x 6” album – just big enough for a 4” x 6” photo and a caption on each page.

Suggested Page Ideas:

• The people in my family

• My favorite toys

• My room

• What makes me special

• I like to eat…

• Books that I love to read

• My favorite outside games

• I love my pet

• What I want to be when I grow up

• Things my family likes to do

• Family traditions

• My bed-time routine

Select one photo to go with each page and work with your child to come up with the journaling caption for that layout. Once you have completed all the pages, you will have a fun mini-book that your child will love to read over and over again with you.

Bonus Idea: For little hands, you might want to consider having your mini-book laminated and spiral bound.

1. First, have each page color copied on cardstock.

2. Trim the cardstock down, leaving a ¼” border of white on one side of each page (the side that has the white trim will alternate from page to page).

3. Adhere each two pages back to back and run them through a laminator – you can do this yourself or have it done at your local copy center.

4. Once the pages are laminated back-to-back, have them spiral bound, again by the copy center staff, or you could simple punch a hole in the pages and hold them together with ring binders.

I had the book about our family laminated and bound for our new son so that I did not have to worry about pages falling out of or being damaged in a more traditional style scrapbook. When complete, your child can carry this book around with him everywhere.

Sample Pages From Rebecca's Album

The cover of the album says, "Mikhail's New Family" in both English and Russian.

The first section of the book is devoted to pictures of the family.

The second section is all about things that our family likes to do.
Note: The text is kept very simple; think child's "board-book" type wording.

Adoption Mini-Scrapbook Quick Tip: If you happen to be making a book for a child you are adopting from another country, try to find someone in your city that could help you translate your captions in to the language of that country. This way the child’s caregivers will be able to read the book to the child.

Other Resources:

How To Create a Container Brag Book

Family Cookbook - Simple Scrapbook

Have you tried it?

If you try out this scrapbooking idea, come share your layouts with us on the About Scrapbooking Forum.