Unique Baby Shower Gift: "My First ABC's" Alphabet Book
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When my second nephew was born, I wanted a unique baby shower gift that was both sentimental and practical. It was going to be hard to top what we had given his older brother a few years earlier, which was a video that pieced together 60-second video clips from everyone in the family that he could watch when he got older and had forgotten – or maybe just wanted to forget – who we all were (see that post here).
Anyway, because I had already exhausted the “spoken” word idea, I moved on to the “written” word instead. Eventually, I settled on the idea of an alphabet book. It served a lot of purposes: a) it was sentimental, because I’d involve everyone again; b) it was educational, because he could actually learn his letters by reading it; and c) getting people to do their part for this sounded a hell of a lot easier than asking them to get on camera and record themselves looking ridiculous.
STEP ONE: Determining Baby Shower Gift Interest & Giving Instructions
First step was to make sure people even wanted to be a part of a unique baby shower gift in the first place. Actually, the REAL first step was to sing the ABC’s to myself to count how many letters are actually in the alphabet – it is a true miracle that I’ve stayed alive this long. After confirming that there are, indeed, 26 letters, I then confirmed interest from 26 family and friends (if you don’t have this many, people can take more than one and fill in the blank pages with photos – we did that with a friend of ours and it worked out fine).
It was important to figure out how to make this as easy – and consistent – for other people as possible, especially since some of them weren’t necessarily playing with a full deck when it came to intelligence. I also didn’t want to be responsible for sending them any supplies in advance because that would just take longer and also increase the risk of things getting lost in the mail.
So what’s one thing virtually everyone owns?
STEP TWO: Baby Shower Gift Execution
(not the killing type, though there were times when that sounded good too)
I asked everyone to take a regular sheet of plain white printer paper and fold it in half horizontally so it basically looks like a standard greeting card (if you fold it the other way then you’re a total fool and shouldn’t be participating in the first place). This is important because it not only makes everyone’s pages the same size without being huge, but it also gives you a double backing in case you use markers for your design that bleed through.
After folding the paper in half, you’re ready to get to work. Ahead of time, I had assigned each person their own letter of the alphabet, so I then asked them to use one outside page (doesn’t matter which side) to draw their letter, along with a drawn photo of something that starts with said letter. Don’t worry if you’re not an artist – tracing works just fine too. On the other outside page, I asked everyone to write a personal note to the baby. This concept was lost on many of our people, who somehow thought this meant that they should instead write to the parents – but hopefully your friends and family are smarter than mine.
The design tools are totally up to the participants – some people used markers, others crayons, others colored pencils, and others just pen. Giving them the choice to draw what they want with whatever they wanted actually made the book better because there was diversity, so don’t worry if some pages look worse than others.
Unless you’re local and see these people all the time, you’re going to need them to mail you their pages. While that’ll incur some expense on their part, I never got any pushback and I think people were just happy they were chosen to be part of it without having to do much work to make it happen.
STEP THREE: Laminate, Cut, Bind & Finalize
Once the pages are in your hands, you now have to create the book itself. I called dozens of print shops and believe it or not, the best option turned out to be FedEx. Call your local branch to make sure they have a laminator and find out if it’s self-service or if they do it for you. If it’s the former, allow yourself about an hour to get everything done.
Once inside, find laminator pouches (ask the rep and they’ll guide you through the process – it’s incredibly simple), line your pages up (use a larger pouch that can fit two pages – one on each opposite corner – to save money vs. a smaller pouch that only fits one), tuck them inside, and run it through the machine. In less than 30 seconds, it’s done.
Head to the cutting table (one always exists, don’t worry) and use the slicer to make all final pages the same size (I made my husband the engineer do this since I can’t cut in a straight line to save my life), then go to the counter and ask to have it spiral-bound. Pick the one that matches the photo below or you’ll risk it being too small, though I’d have to believe the rep will know that. If a self-service option isn’t available, your cost will be higher so make sure you get a price quote before you start the process to avoid having a meltdown in the store.
IN CLOSING
If you do it yourself, the whole thing will end up costing you about $40 (give or take), and you’ll be filled with so much pride walking out of the building that you’ll actually find yourself wondering if you should make one for yourself too. I’m almost embarrassed to admit – but not really, because I have no shame – that I did end up making my own daughter a variation of one for her 1st birthday, and I’m glad I did.
If you have to pay the rep to do it for you, the cost will be more like $100-125, which unfortunately was what happened to me when we made a second book for a friend. I’m told that was because their machine broke, which may or may not have been because they saw the look in my eyes when I found out how much they thought I would be paying (in case you’re curious, the man lived, but it was touch and go for a few minutes).
The hardest part about this unique baby shower gift isn’t putting it together, though – it’s following up incessantly with people who forget the deadline, don’t understand what they’re supposed to do, need to be hand-held through the entire process, require tips on what to say, or just think their time is more valuable than yours and that they don’t owe you anything until you threaten to dismember them.
But when it’s all said and done, you’ll end up with a beautiful, unique baby shower gift that’s filled with a ton of love for people who deserve it – and in the end, that’s really all that matters.
