Hello lovelies. It’s Caylee here and I’m sharing something special that I’ve made this month. One of my friends is pregnant, and I just knew that I had to make something to help her document her pregnancy. I’ve seen the pregnancy documenting all over Pinterest and I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to help make her documenting easier. To make it as easy as possible I made it in a pocket pages style album so that she could put in her own memories on the go. I’ll probably make a photo book after all the photos, but it’s always lovely to save memories while they’re happening and plastic pocket pages are fantastic for that.

Pregnancy album tip 1: Create weekly title cards

There are a whole bunch of paislee press options, but my latest fave is the set from This Week 4×6 journal cards. I just resized them so that they’d fit 3×4″ and printed them out. Super easy.

Alternatives: use months (This Month or Monthly Volume 2) or little calendars (like 2016 Calendar Journal Cards) to mark the exact dates rather than week numbers.

Pregnancy album tip 2: Create weekly summaries

I used to love weekly summaries for my regular Project Life. A nice template for weekly pregnancy updates are also lovely. I was very much inspired by Catherine for those. I loved the simple look in the Pocket Guide No. 2 templates and even kept the blue “washi” strip.

You can leave it with just the size of the baby for the week (if you’re not using weekly cards, you can have the week as a title). I used this pin as reference for the size each week.

Or you can include prompts (feeling, symptoms, cravings, aversions).

Alternatives: Week in Review Cards or do it a la Catherine.

Pregnancy album tip 3: Get Fancy

Big “cards” are fun too! I printed out this lovely bump word art in Presslines no.10 – Pregnancy (going vintage!) at 6×12″ on vellum for a big insert.

Alternatives: print out a digital element at a large scale or use a traditional scrapbook quick page template (like Chasing the Sun Quick Page no. 2 which is free) to add something other than pocket pages. You could also use a few templates from an album pack (like the Defined Baby Quick Album).

Pregnancy album tip 4: Give options

As beautiful as it is, vellum is not always the right paper for the job. Print out the same cards on different papers or with other background colours to give options. It’s not always easy to know what journal cards will look best with the photos until the photos are done, and if you’re doing this in advance or as a gift, having options is a great idea.

Alternatives: use digital paper behind a journal card to change the look completely (I like Quintessentials no. 4 for its solid pinks, blacks, and greys), or recolour digital elements to spruce them up a bit.

Pregnancy album tip 5: Change products to suit your needs

I used the School Years Tags for each trimester and just changed out the bottom word so that I could keep the fantastic script.

Alternatives: just think out of the box when going through your digital stash.

Pregnancy album tip 6: Include less pregnancy-specific cards too

Not everything has to be exactly pregnancy specific. I printed out a simple watermelon card (this background and label from Backyard BBQ) since I knew my friend was loving watermelon as a pregnant lady in the summer heat. Depending on how well you know the pregnant lady, you can include a whole range of different cards.

Alternatives: probably most elements from food themed kits (like ), lovely phrases (such as “adventure awaits” in Summer Manifesto, “in progress” from In Progress for belly shots, merge together elements from His & Hers to create “the story of you”), or journal prompts (More or Less for a place for her to write about how she’d love less morning sickness and more sonogram photos, and “we said yes to” from Say Yes To).

I’ve given loads of ideas for a pregnancy album. So if you are a friend are pregnant, there’s so much fun to be had and memories to be documented. Enjoy it.

♥ Caylee

You can see previous Paislee Press projects, or find more bits of me on Instagram, and my blog.