How to Make a Personalized Baby Board Book 3 Ways

I made my toddler a few baby board books, and I wanted to share how I made them because my son is absolutely obsessed! Anyone can do this FYI.

My son is super into reading books and his favorites tend to be board books. Naturally, after a while, I was like, ‘Hmm…I wonder if I could make my own board book for him’.

And it turns out, you totally can and it’s so, so easy! I worked with Artifact Uprising to put together three board books for Hayes and show you exactly how I made them so you can make ’em too.

And now I’m so addicted to making these, I don’t know if I can stop. Probably because it kinda fulfills a dream of mine to author  some ‘real’ books for kids. Until then…these will do just fine!

Okay, so before I go any further into explaining how I made these cute little books, look at the quality! I’ll try to stop using exclamation marks. Here’s a closeup so you can see the printing quality. I mean!

This is one of the reasons I love Artifact Uprising so much. The quality is so good and I love that everything is printed matte as well. I don’t really like shiny photo pages, personally. 

But aside from the awesome printing quality, they’re also very sturdy.

Meaning, they can take a beating from a toddler and still manage to be in good looking condition. Haha. A requirement for this age especially. 

The rounded corners and small size (easy to hold) are another check in the plus column too.

Since I wanted each baby board book to be a hybrid of learning and memories that we can look at everyday.

Something that feels a little sentimental, but isn’t a precious book that he can’t play with. You with me?

Board Book Theme Ideas

So, I created three books for him, using Artifact Uprising’s Baby Board Book feature.

And each board book is filled with what we’ve been learning lately and/or what I thought he would like to read over and over again.

Every book is completely personalized – filled with photos I took. And then in two of the books, I also wrote little phrases for each page that relate back to either a memory from that time or what he loves about it.

For example, one book is focused on his favorite toys. The plan for this one is for him to point to each of the toys and say them out loud, so he can ‘read’ it with me.

He’s pretty good about knowing the names of all his toys and he gets excited when we says it right.

And when we have time to extend things out, we’ll turn it into an exploring thing. Like, we turn to the face puzzle page and then we go find it in the house to relate the book photo to his real life toy.

We don’t do this every time though. Haha. No one has time for that everyday, these days.

The second of the baby board books is all about colors, which is something we’ve been working on with him for the last month or so.

I searched for photos I had taken that included each color and then made the opposite page that color too to reinforce it.

And then, the last book is more sentimental and is all about the first home he lived in, since we have since moved away.

It goes through some of the things he loved to do in our first house together and some milestones that he hit there, like his first birthday.

Every picture includes him somewhere in it and he loves that! He says ‘baby’ every time he sees himself.

How to Make a Personalized Baby Board Book

There are different ways that you can make baby board books like mine.

But I used Artifact Uprising specifically because, like I said before, the quality is SO good! Plus, the style fits really well with my aesthetic (and I’m guessing, yours too)!

So this tutorial with explain the step by step process for how you can make a board book on Artifact Uprising. It’s easy, I promise.

1. Gather photos or take new ones.

The first thing I did to get started with making each board book is go through old photos and figure out what I already had, photo-wise.

And then I created a quick list of the things I wanted to get pictures of still, with Hayes.

For ‘the book of colors’ and the ‘my first home book’, I already had all the photos I needed. But for the toys book, I needed to take new photos.

We turned the photo taking into an activity and it ended up being really fun for both of us.

He posed with his favorite toys and I took pictures of the whole thing and would show him the photos in my camera as we went along. His favorite part.

The whole thing only took about 30 minutes (and that includes at least 20 minutes of play time. haha).

From there, I put everything on my computer, edited the photos, and then downloaded them onto the Artifact Uprising site. Which brings me to the next step…

2. Select baby board book and choose customizations.

Select baby board book from the photo books drop down on www.artifactuprising.com. That will take you to the Baby Board Book page (here) where you can customize your project.

On this page, you can decide the page count – 20, 30, or 40. I went with 20 pages for each. And you can also decide the theme – people, places, thankful, or custom. I went with the custom option for each book. But I love the other prompt options too as additional board book ideas.

Then click the Make Your Book button and it will take you to the editor to start creating your book.

3. Start editing your book.

This step may sound intimidating. But honestly, it’s so easy! And AU walks you through the process (if desired), with prompts for each step.

Naming your project, customizing colors, etc.

I like to change the colors of the spine to a different color for each project, so they look cute all together on a shelf. 

When you are logged in, you can save your progress anytime and come back to it later if you don’t finish it all at once.

This feature is so helpful!

4. Add your photos.

Click the add photos button and upload your photos. From there you can create a new gallery or add to an existing gallery, which makes photos super easy to find later if you have a lot to look through.

This is especially helpful for bigger projects, like photo albums, etc. But even just for a smaller project, like a board book, it’s nice to have.

Once your photos are in, you just click on them to add one to the next blank page (or cover and back cover).

And if you want to change them out or edit them from there (re-crop, etc), just rollover the image on the book and click edit photo.

Apply changes to save the changes you’ve made or remove the photo and choose a new one.

You’ll also be able to add your child’s name to the inside cover, along with a note or ‘poem’ about the book. Then, you can add the remaining pages

5. Change page layouts, add text, etc.

As you add photos, you can change the layout, click to add text, and change the color of the text page.

You can choose from colors that AU has already selected OR use any hex color code you like.

Don’t know the hex color codes? I didn’t either. I just googled ’em…like ‘hex color code blue’.

A bunch will pop up from there and you can choose one you like.

6. Add to cart and checkout.

Once your book is completely finished, press the add to cart button and you can checkout from there.

Be sure to use the code BRITTNI15 for 15% off your order! One coupon code per person.

Offer doesn’t apply to shipping, bundle deals, gift cards, or our wedding design services. Code will expire two weeks after this post goes live.

He loves reading these – the pages are easy to turn and we can bring them in the car, to grandma’s house, etc.

And now I’m wondering if we should make another set for grandma’s house. Hmmm…

They’d make such a unique gift for a baby or toddler’s birthday, Christmas, etc.

But I’ll stop talking now and just say, let me know if you have any questions. I’m happy to answer.

P.S. That discount code again is BRITTNI15 for 15% off your Artifact Uprising order. So head over and take advantage of the code, if you can. I just bought some wood gallery frames from AU too, for digital prints and photos, if you’re looking for frames.

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This post is in partnership with Artifact Uprising. All opinions are my own.