Create a Board Book Gift and Score Major Points!

Well it's been a while! Much has happened in the last months and I'm checking back in thanks to some shout outs my family sent this way in response to a fun give I was able to give my wee nephew Wyatt this Christmas. Many have emailed me asking how I made this book, and I feel the need to expose that my lack of real creativity. With a little Facebook stalking, a credit card and a healthy fear of writing sentences that would forever document your poor use of the English language, you too can give a sweet board book to someone you love.

Here's the cover page of Wyatt's book, to see the whole thing, visit my brother's ridiculous blog:
My Kid Is Special

While on one of my daily Pinterest perusals I stumbled on a sweet gift idea from Pinhole Press, flashcards and memory games made with the faces of a child's family. I loved those and then was all over their site and found the board book. A little pricey for a 15 page book, but I knew it would be something the whole Gilchrist side of the family would enjoy if I did it right. I considered doing both sides of Wyatt's extended family in the form of memory cards, but realized that would make a lot of work for Cara's sister and mom so I decided to go the more simple route.

Thankfully, my roommate Kaela Lee had taken some beautiful photos of Grant, Cara and Wyatt so I knew I had a solid 4 or so photos to work with.  Then I sweated it out trying to find the best photos of the rest of us that would be easily recognizable to Wyatt, would flow well and would somehow go with the coordinating colored page with text. That's the only hitch, you can't change the order of the pages, so it's nice to find photos that don't clash with the colors.

Really beyond that, it was a matter of making sure I didn't botch any words or punctuation and made it simple enough so that Wyatt can use it to learn to say our names and eventually read some of the captions.

After I quadruple checked the text and made sure the photos were placed where I wanted, I placed my order, handed over my credit card and a little less than 2 weeks later it arrived with plenty of time to spare! As a side note, I had ordered a personalized iphone case for my mom as well from Shutterfly, only to find out the next morning after I'd placed the order that she had upgraded to the iphone 5 the day before. Of course she did. Shutterfly was great enough to cancel my order the next day, however I still received 2 cases, the old and the new, identical except for shape, lucky mom!

All in all, it was a gift for the whole family more than for Wyatt, and I'm so thankful it was as big of a hit as it was. Wyatt actually honed in on it when he first opened it and loved turning the pages, and then Grandma read it about 50 more times, so yes, I'd say it was a success! If you'd like to score big points at your next birthday or holiday, make your very own board book!

Pinhole Press-Mini Book of Names and Faces

I've had some other great projects that I've loved completing this last year, so I'll post more about those in a few days as I reflect on 2012!

Happy Lazy-week-after-Christmas,

Ashley