Photo Transfer & Fabric Scrapbooking

A very special little boy in my life recently celebrated his first birthday and I wanted to give him a gift that he could both enjoy now, and later, as a memorable keepsake.

I came across an article on how to transfer photos to fabric to create a scrapbook and decided to customize the project to make it meaningful to my little friend, the birthday boy.



Materials:
I purchased felt in chocolate brown, moss green and tan and then selected coordinating fabric swatches in patterns such as leopard print and sunflowers.

Rick rack borders and frames the opening and closing images and iron-on embellishments decorate the pages that show his immediate family.

Photo selection:
I used both photos that I had taken as well as photos that I downloaded from his mom's photo sharing sites. This kept the gift a surprise.


Photo transfer:
Ink-jet fabric sheets can be used to print the photographs from your home computer. The words I chose, e.g., "laughter" were printed on the fabric in the same way. I used June Tailor Sew-In Inkjet Fabric Sheets and they turned out beautifully.

I laid out the pages on the floor to rearrange and order them, then took a digital image of each page with my camera for reference when I began to sew it together. The digital images were valuable in helping me keep the order when I sewed with tired eyes late at night!

Stitching:
This was my first attempt at sewing in many years, so I kept it simple, but I especially liked how the double stitching with contrasting thread gave the book a shabby chic look.

Binding:
Grommets and a grommet setting tool create the binding (truthfully, my father-in-law did this for me) but you could also use ribbon, eyelets, or stitching. The advantage of the binder rings is that pages can be added, should there be another addition to the family.


The result:
The birthday boy loved his book! And I especially enjoyed seeing him point to the familiar faces, especially since we all live a distance apart.

This fabric photo book is a touch-friendly, personal keepsake for him to get to know (and later, remember) his close family at such a young age. I was so pleased with the book that I plan to make another one.


Credits: This project was inspired by Donna Downey's article at creatingkeepsakes.com. She has a fabulous website, complete with projects, at donnadowney.com.