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How To Design An Adoption Scrapbook For Your Child
Scrapbooking your child's adoption story is a wonderful way to get it down in a book for him or her to be able to share with you for years to come. As a busy mom, however, too often our good intentions turn into an overflowing box of memory items that get stuck in the closet, waiting for the day when we can sit down an concentrate without a little voice interrupting our thoughts. We so want to do the perfect album, it often becomes a task larger than we can take on.
Scrapbooking your child’s adoption story is a wonderful way to get it down in a book for him or her to be able to share with you for years to come. As a busy mom, however, too often our good intentions turn into an overflowing box of memory items that get stuck in the closet, waiting for the day when we can sit down an concentrate without a little voice interrupting our thoughts. We so want to do the perfect album, it often becomes a task larger than we can take on.
Don’t postpone your child’s adoption scrapbook any longer. It’s important that they get to flip through this book and share in the photos long before they go off to the university.
Here are some tips to help you in scrapbooking your child’s adoption album:
[1] Journal about all your memories. If you feel exhausted at night and too tired to write then just start tape-recording them to use later. Though you think you’ll remember it all, soon new memories will overlap some of those early precious ones. So take the time to write down both important and unimportant details.
[2] Record what you know for your child which is appropriate for his or her little ears. Perhaps you were able to spend some time with the birth mom and you have some personal reflections on how kind she was. Or maybe you have no information at all if your child was adopted from an orphanage. It’s important to be honest but it also needs to be something that you can read from your book to your 5-year-old. If your child’s birth mom has many other children which she is still raising, or your child was the result of an abusive situation, this isn’t appropriate for the book.
[3] Spread out the photos you want to use. Don’t feel like you need to use all of them; just pick the ones that are the most precious for this album. If you are you arranging the book chronologically, make sure everything is in order.
[4] Think about what size of album to you’d like. They are typically 8” x 8”, 12” x 12” or 8.5” x 11”. The 8” x 8” albums are an advantageous size for because little hands can easily hold the book and flip through the pages.
[5] Try to find whatever supplies you’d like to use. I had a hard time being able to find anything other than a couple of stickers that mentioned adoption. Frustrated with this, I designed my own 8” x 8” overlay transparencies. Overlays are great because they make your book look like it was done by a professional, they is no glue or tape needed and anyone can use them (no skill required)
[6] Keep it simple. Start out by just getting the basics into the book and then you can add to it later. As you read through the story to your child and hear her questions, you may think of other pages to add or things that should be represented. For example, if you had a foreign adoption, you may want a page about “that year in history” from your child’s country of origin.
[7] Use poems or quotes to fill in pages. If you lack information or are just feeling overwhelmed by writing your thoughts down, use a few adoption quotes. Just be sure to not rely on them completely. Poetry is nice, but your own thoughts will mean the most to your child.
[8] Use child-friendly language. For example, don’t ever write, “Your birth mom loved you enough to give you to us.” This could frighten your child into thinking that you will love him too much as well and soon give him away! Word things simply: “Miss Clara wanted you to have both a daddy and a mommy and she knew that we were really wanted to be your parents.”
Too often we get caught up in creating a masterpiece of a baby album that will include every bath, haircut, smile and tear. Instead, focus on just the adoption story for this small book and put a lot of the baby or family pages in other books. The sooner it’s ready for your child, the more time of their childhood they will reflect on it.