0 Comments

Maternity/Pregnancy Journal Scrapbook Tutorial

Pregnancy is a wonderful feeling and the process of 9 months is even more beautiful. Why not save those beautiful memories in a Pregnancy Journal Scrapbook for life and cherish them forever.

It is not easy or feasible for every pregnant woman to create their own Maternity Journal Scrapbook. In fact if you a working woman or have relatively difficult trimesters, you can get someone to make your Pregnancy and Baby Scrapbook.

My friend is in her 3rd month, when she asked me to make this Pregnancy Journal Scrapbook for her. Since she is a working woman, she doesn’t have much time to give me details and choices, so I had to create most of it very generic. I just asked her to click lots n lots of photographs.

So let’s start how I decided on the theme and the order of her Pregnancy Scrapbook Album. Since I will be making a separate Baby Scrapbook Album, so this is only focused on her Pregnancy.

I wanted to make it a belly book, so was eager to give the book a shape of belly. Also, since I wanted to make three trimesters as the benchmarks, I choose 3 colours – Green, Blue and Pink to separate the three trimesters with Green being the First Trimester, Blue as Second Trimester and Pink as Third Trimester.

The next step was to bind the book, although this could be done at the last stage too, I prefer to bind my books before I start working on the inside pages. I used hinges technique to bind my book. I added 4 pages per trimester along with 3 half pages as above to name the trimesters and 1 page in front for the conception day.

For the cover page, I used a vector image of pregnant woman and added Memories to give the Scrapbook an emotional touch. I used pink dots paper as the base of the cover to give weight to the vector image. For embellishments, I added a simple flower and a hat to the pregnant woman.

Now, the next step was to create the inner pages. Since I did not had any information on what all she would want to save and how much would she want to reveal, I created the book in a way that it can be further customized as per her needs.

The first page was dedicated to the conception day or I call it “Positive Day”. The day when she came to know about her pregnancy for the first time. I gave a small area to share the thoughts and feelings of being pregnant. I know there are many thoughts good or bad that comes to our mind when we see those 2 lines in red. I completed the page with a quote from Google that explains the feelings of a expecting mother.

The next page had a calendar to mark the conception day and had 2 tags which can be filled with any information that she might want to save. It was followed by the First Trimester teaser page which had a quote mentioned.

The next few pages in First Trimester were all generic and can be customized with any information that she wants to save. Starting from who all she shared the news with to what all she experienced during pregnancy to his husbands reaction and how he cared for her, she can add as much information as she wants to. Some of the ideas to be covered are as follows:

  1. How many months were passed when you first came to know?
  2. How did you reveal the news to your husband?
  3. Doctors appointment/visits/doctor and hospital details
  4. Advice/suggestions from friends and family
  5. Etc

I did not mention every week, though she didn’t clicked photos for every week. So I highlighted few of the weeks at alternate pages for her to stick pictures.

I like to give each and every page a unique design, so I used different ways to make my Scrapbook pages. I used washi tapes, doilies, tags, chords, shape cutter and border cutters to create different designs for each page. I mentioned 8th and 12th week in First trimester to stick pictures. I did not mention to stick pictures on every page, for she can also write the emotions and feelings if she wants to instead of sticking pictures on every page. Remember, this Scrapbook Journal is to save all the memories be it in form on pictures or feelings. 

Next comes the Second Trimester and our Blue coloured theme.

The trimester tags are created on Microsoft word using texture and shapes. The quotes were taken from Google and the author is unknown, but they are beautifully written poem and quotes by the author. I dedicated this to the father-to-be, as it is important to talk about his feelings and emotions too. As I rightly mentioned at the start of the book, “We are having a baby.”

I created a separate page for cravings for this is one of the feelings all expected mothers go through. Cravings from chocolates to ice creams to the foods/smell that we cannot stand. I gave two spaces to both mention cravings and non-cravings, or to use one for a picture of having your favorite food.

Since the gender of the child was unknown, as it happens in India, there was a separate page where she can paste her ultrasound picture. Also, she can mention the feeling of hearing the first sound of heart beat for the little one and can jot down some of her feelings and emotions along with her husband.

I especially like the layout of the above page, for I love using washi tapes. I highlighted 16th week here and gave option to write and stick picture.

The next layout is one of my favorite and I might have used this one with some tweaks here and there 2-3 times in the book.

The last page of 2nd Trimester has a blank page with minimal embellishments to add any other detail she might want to. At times, I love playing simple and sober with minimal work like the one below.

Let’s now begin with the Third Trimester. As happy as expecting mother and father are, how can we forget about the happiest grandparents.  With all the great advices and care, to-be-grandparents are equally excited to welcome the new member in the family. So a page was to be dedicated for the amazing Grandparents.

I took a poem from Google, again by an unknown author who beautifully described the feelings of grandparents in this amazing poem.

The next few pages were dedicated to the third trimester weeks, and rest can be customized as per the choices.

This page below has cute tags for the last weeks when the wait is about to over. She can add the last picture before she goes to the hospital or just before the delivery begin.

Next, I added a page to show the growth in 3 trimesters together, preferable if the picture is clicked from the same angle and same outfit, if possible.

Here comes the Pregnancy Journal Scrapbook to an end. I did not added baby pages in this book, for I will be creating a new book for that.

This is one of the best gift for expecting mothers and I at Scrapbookist love to make these Scrapbooks customized as per the choice. Please visit my Facebook for more details and you can view the video for same at https://youtu.be/O2mkJVXbFGU 

Please leave your comments and suggestions below and I will be happy to share more of my work soon.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *