DIY Touch and Feel Photo Book for Baby

 My son loves touch and feel books, almost as much as he loves photo books of his family. I knew I had to create a touch and feel photo book especially tailored just for him, and there had to be DIY instructions out there. Well I found a bunch, and probably by way of mish-mash, just kind of fashioned one up. 

So let me tell you how YOU can make one for your little one! 

First you need to gather your materials:

*Photos

*Cardstock (computer paper or construction paper may work fine too)

*Scissors

*scotch tape

*exacto knife and an old magazine to cut on

*duct tape (don't use metal tape like I did above! I had to redo one of my books because the pages eventually tore and then cut my son! I thought it was just shiny tape and he would love it...but not, it was metal tape. Sheesh. So yes, use duct tape, it works best and is the strongest for the job. Plus you can get real creative with all the different colors and designs out there.)

*Touch and feel materials - use whatever you have laying around your house: old sock, plastic bag, tin foil, saran wrap, wrapping paper, curling ribbon, sandpaper, felt, fabric, old stocking, ribbon, cotton balls....etc.

Steps:

1. Cut your cardstock paper. You will need to cut these slightly larger than the photo size that you have. I had 4x6" photos printed at the one-hour photo and just cut the paper maybe 3/4" larger on each side (roughly pieces that were 5.5"x7.5")

2. Cut the photos. Take your exacto knife and start cutting on your photos where you want to put your different materials. Cut out little blocks, squares, whatever, making sure to cut on top of an old magazine.

3. Tape the material to the back of the photo. Make sure the material is facing the correct way, and then tape the material using scotch tape (or duct tape if it's difficult to do with scotch) just to keep the piece in place. 

4. Place a couple piece of scotch tape to the back of the photo and put in the center of your cardstock. The scotch just keeps it in place until you can duct tape it.

5. Flip the cardstock over and do the same with another picture on the other side.

6. Duct Tape the edges. Your duct tape is likely around 2" in width. You want to cut off a strip (doesn't need to be exact measurement) and start taping around one edge of the photo, then wrapping the excess duct tape around to the other side taping the edge of the 2nd photo on the other side. One piece of tape should be taping TWO edges of TWO different photos to each side of the cardstock. You will need to repeat this step around the other 3 edges. 

7. Repeat steps 2-6 for all of your pages.

8. Assemble your book. Once you have all of your pages, put them in the order that you want. Then open to the first 2 pages side by side, leaving a tiny gap between them, and put a strip of duct tape holding those two pages together - allowing that little gap to be there (this will make it possible for the book to close. If the pages are touching when you tape them together, you may have difficulty opening and closing the book). Do this to all the pages. Once you have each page taped to the next, close the book and place one last piece of duct tape along the edge to provide as the binding for the book. 

And that's it - you're all done!! 

You can adapt these steps however you need to! Don't worry about making it perfect, mine certainly isn't. My book is nowhere near perfect or pretty, but my son ADORES this book and lights up every time he sees and plays with it. Kids love to see pictures of themselves, other babies, animals, and the family that they know. 

So tell me, what unique ideas have you seen or created for your kids that they enjoy?