DIY Custom Photo Storybook

We tried to really stick to our four gift categories for the boys this year (you can read more about that here) and one area we had a lot of fun with was "something to read." We made a custom storybook! We spent a day at the end of summer taking pictures of the boys at a local park and had them printed in an 8x8 Shutterfly book.

We went with the story "going on a bear hunt" because the pictures would be pretty simple and there were plenty of "scenes" in the park like going over a bridge, across a stream, etc. For each area we started with a picture checking out the obstacle.

Then a picture going across.

Then a picture running away after they find the bear! This one at the cave is my favorite. Big Brother really got into it at this point.

We made sure that all the pictures of the hunt had the boys going from left to right, then all the picture of them running from the bear go from right to left. We used Photoshop to make the pages 8x8" and add text to the bottom of each page. We printed a couple sample pages on our home printer to make sure the font size would be readable.

And the bear? My sister drew a few bears for us to photoshop into the running pages. Like this one:

Once all our pages were put together we loaded them into an 8x8 book on the shutterfly website. We used the "modern white" style for our book. The page designs didn't matter for us since we used the full-page photos we made in photoshop, but this style gave us the tan binding. (You could also use a different page layout to do a picture at the top and type the words into a text box, instead of making whole pages in Photoshop.)

We used a cute "behind the scenes" photo for the cover page, complete with a bear. When Big Brother saw this page he was like "THERE'S A BEAR!!!"

The first few pages show us reaching, then crossing each of our five obstacles - tall grass, a bridge, a forest, a river, and a cave.

Then there is a page of the boys running back across each obstacle away from a fuzzy little bear.

And all the back home, up the stairs, and into bed. With the last page very appropriately saying "We are never going on a bear hunt again!" Which is how we all felt by the end. You can tell by all the tears.

We're already coming up with ideas for a book next year! What a fun way to watch how they grow over the years. Here are a few more favorite pics from our day at the park.

King of the rock. "It's the biggest rock I ever saw!"

I kind of regret not using this for the Christmas card this year....

Have you ever made a storybook with pictures of your kids? Some of the ideas we've thrown around for next year are a treasure hunt, something with dinosaurs, or something with pirates. What would you do? We need ideas!

PlayDoh Busy Bag

Big Brother has been loving our busy bags (see them all here) while we've been cooped up this winter. And this play dough bag is no exception! This one was so easy to make and he loves it. I picked a few printable pages from this site, ran them through our handy laminator, then punched holes on the top edge and used binder rings to hold them all together. I keep it in our busy bag bin with a couple jars of play dough.

There are tons of pages to choose from and I picked out something like 18 of them. After I printed them I lined up two pages back to back when I laminated them to make reversible sheets so I didn't waste any of the laminating pouches.

Some of the sheets I printed were the numbers, making eggs for the chicken (and giving it a nose), teeth for the crocodile, apples for the tree, carrots for the bunnies, and making faces. I LOVE watching him do the face one. It is so stinking funny how he interprets faces and what parts he thinks are important. Like mustaches. And sometimes he just needs eyebrows and we forget the eyes.

I'm pretty sure he said this is a big mustache. And the small dot above it is the tiny mouth. He may not be totally clear on where a mustache goes.

So that was a fun and easy busy bag to make. And I'm really glad we don't have carpet when he uses it. :) Now for extra cutes, Big Brother last summer playing with the Cranium play dough:

He always needs a knife for playdough.

Warming up.

Sometimes it helps to stand up. Better leverage?

How do you keep the kiddos entertained when you're stuck indoors?

Busy Bag Tutorials

This is a round up of all the busy bags I've made. As I make more I'll link them here as well so they are all in one convenient place. Enjoy!

Magnetic Fishing Game

Bean Counting Game

Rainbow Rice

Dyed Pasta Sorting/Stringing

Shape Matching Cards

Play Dough Mats

Shape Matching Cards Busy Bag

This is my last busy bag for now. I have a few more in the works so I'll add tutorials for those when I get a chance. Today's bag is for shape matching cards. This are a little advanced for B right now, but he'll grow into them soon enough.

For this project I hit up the dollar store again and found these packs of foam shapes and a pack of pre-cut foam cards (the same ones I used for my bean counting game, there were plenty of cards for both busy bags!)

Dyed Pasta Busy Bag

Don't worry guys, just a couple more to go. I expect you all to have a nice pile of busy bags by the end of the week. Today we're adding a bag with lots of possibilities - dyed pasta!

All you need for this bag is pasta, rubbing alcohol, and food coloring. I picked pasta with big holes in case we decide to make necklaces or something. But you can use any fun shapes!

Rainbow Rice Busy Bag

This is one of B's favorite busy bags. Rainbow rice! He had a lot of fun helping me make it, too.

All you need for this is white rice, vinegar, and food coloring.

Bean Counting Busy Bag

Time for busy bag number two! I have a couple more coming too, so just bear with me. :) Today's bag is a bean counting game. Everything sounds more fun when you call it a game, right? 

This is another super easy one. I started with a pack of foam cards from the Dollar Tree. I used a sharpie to draw a number in the middle of each one, then traced a nickel to get the right number of circles.

Then bag it all up with a pile of dry beans for a rainy day.

I've worked with B a little bit on the actual counting, but most of the time he's happy to just put beans in all the circles. And since I already had the beans in my pantry, the total cost of this project was just $1 for the foam cards!

Do you have a favorite counting busy bag?

Magnetic Fishing Game Busy Bag

In the lasts couple weeks before Baby A made his appearance I was frantically putting together some fun things for B to do while we would be stuck at home recovering. One thing I did was make up several busy bags. Just some quiet activities we could do sitting around the living room. Well, as quiet as you can get with a little ball of energy.  The first one I made was a magnetic fishing game.

It's actually really easy... and no sewing required! For each fish I started by cutting out two fish shapes from a piece of felt (I just made up the shape and traced it so my fishies would match... but different sizes & shapes would be fun too!)

I hot glued a metal washer to one side.