ABC book

I am feeling better today - hopefully this will last a bit - and therefore thought I take the chance to write a post. As I already said, I did not do much during the last weeks that I could write about. But I am very excited about one of the presents for my daughter for Easter. I already started making it sometime last year. I actually wanted to give it to her for Christmas. In the end we decided not to give it to her at Christmas mainly for two reasons
- we had so many other presents already
- I was not completely done yet ;-)
I had started during the last year to make an ABC photo book. You know those picture books that have one letter of the alphabet on each page and a picture of something that starts with that letter? Well, that's what I did. I never really liked those books in the stores. For some reason I either did not like the pictures, or the choice of things that they used for different letters, or both ... :-)
So I decided to make her a book using photos of things she knows, people, animals, places we have been to - that kinda thing. I figured even if she would not like the ACB-part of the book - she definitely would enjoy the photos. I had started this project I think already in summer last year. I made it on the computer with digital photos. I used a free program from a business that makes photo books. To order the book did cost quite a lot. (Way more than the books at the store - so this is definitely NOT a way to save money!) But I just like the personalized book so much more - I think it is worth the money!
I was at the beginning thinking of making one by hand - the good old fashioned way. :-) But I figured if I order all the photos I would need and buy all the supplies (different papers and stamps and stuff) ... it would probably end up costing not that much less. I guess it would have taken about the same amount of time ... not sure though. But I would have had a big mess of papers, cuttings, scissors, glue ... lying around in my house for months!!! The computerized way definitly is less messy. ;-)

Well, as I said it took me ages to finally finish the book. But when I got it in the mail about 2 weeks ago I was so happy! It turned out wonderful! And I am also very happy we did not give it to her at Christmas - since now seems the perfect timing. She is very interested in letters. She can write a few - like the ones in her name. And she just started to be able to identify the sounds at the beginning of a word, which she could not do AT ALL at around Christmas time. So I guess it will be perfect.
Here are a few pictures of the book:


Obviously the first page in the book - Arzt means doctor, Ameisenbär is an anteater, and Auto means car. Here a few more pages:


I really can't wait to give it to her! :-)