Make Your Own Personalized ABC Book

Photo Book Baby loves books. He loves when we read to him and he also loves looking through books on his own. I’ve made him several photo books like his “facebook” that he enjoys going through. You can check out all the baby and family photo books I’ve made here.

Making a custom ABC book has been on my list for quite some time now. A long while back I even made an Excel spreadsheet with all the ideas of what words and photos I’d use to illustrate each letter. Then it sat for a long time. Photo Book Baby (now Photo Book Toddler) already knows his alphabet, but he still loves to go through his alphabet books. He also loves looking at the animal alphabet canvas print that we have had in his room since he was a few months old and the ABC song still plays big in this house. Plus I know he will love any book I give him with eye-catching photos and especially one that includes so much of his favorite things and familiar faces.

There’s nothing like a great deal to get a person moving forward on a dormant project. Shutterfly’s FREE 8 x 8 photo book offer (code: SUMMERBOOK that’s been extended through Thursday, September 12, 2013, 11:59pm PT), is what pushed me to get this book cranked out in just a few days time and it was actually easier than I thought. Instead of the free book, I actually opted for the $23.99 credit towards an 8 x 8 hardcover photo book with a lay flat upgrade and matte cover. It’s going to be about 50+ pages as for some letters I decided to do more than one word. I just couldn’t narrow down the photos, so in some cases I used more than one. Good thing extra pages are currently discounted as well! With all the discounts, the whole thing with the upgraded lay flat pages was under $40.00 and I ordered my free mousepad while I was at it. (All these promos are on my photo book deals page so be sure to check them out!)

I took several of these flower photos in the last couple weeks and put them to good use! I designed my pages in Fotufusion and then uploaded them to Shutterfly.

Some Tips for Making Your Own Personalized ABC Book

• Pick your font carefully. I ended up going with Century Gothic. I originally went with a serif font (one with tails) but changed it to a non-serif font. Be sure to mind those “Gs” and “Qs”! I found some pretty odd looking Gs and Qs out there. It’s important that all the upper and lower case letters are legible and uncomplicated when your audience is young. Other good non-serif fonts: Arial, Avant Garde;
• Little kids benefit from bigger sized fonts. The width of my upper and lower case sets were about 2 inches wide and about an inch tall (about 100 pt font in Shutterfly).
• A clean and simple design works well. Full-bleed photos (where the photo covers the whole page) worked best for me though I did have some spreads where I placed more than one photo or inset photos.
• Be sure to double check your spelling and that no words are cut off;
• You can use any random photos you may have to illustrate your words, but you can also do themes: such as animals, flowers, favorite objects around the house (it may get challenging however if you limit your photos to a single theme);
• You can also make a fun exercise for yourself, especially if you’re honing your photography skills, by shooting all the photos on a photo excursion. This will take some advance planning however, but it may be fun to try;

I can’t wait to show Photo Book Baby his new book!