After your letter-hunting family outing, this project makes a great learning tool for young kids and a fun keepsake for older ones. To highlight the ABC's for new readers, we've put vellum over each photo, then used a paint pen to trace the letter underneath. Here's how to make our 5- by 7-inch book; the dimensions are easily adjusted to suit your pictures.

Materials

• Letter photos
• Acid-free glue stick
• Colored card stock
• Vellum
• Black card stock

• Rule
• Plastic knife
• Hole punch
• Ribbon or string
• Paint pen

Instructions

1. Trim the photos into 4-inch squares. Use the glue stick to mat them on pieces of colored card stock cut into 4 1/2-inch squares.

2. Cut the vellum into 4 3/4- by 6 3/4-inch rectangles, and the black card stock into 5- by 7-inch rectangles.

3. To make each page, glue a matted photo on a piece of black card stock, leaving a wide margin on the left edge. (For our cover, we glued on small matted shots, 1 3/4 inches square.)

4. Use a ruler and a plastic knife to score the card stock pages an inch inside the left edge, then stack them in order, slipping a sheet of vellum between each page.

5. Working a few pages at a time, use a hole punch to make four holes an inch apart, about 1/2 inch from the left edge. Bind the book with ribbon or string as shown and tie the ends in a bow.

6. Carefully outline the letters on the vellum overlays with a paint pen and let dry.

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• Photo Crafts

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• October 2009