Before the baby arrives, collect a page from everyone who is glad about it — a wish, a piece of advice, a photo from their own family. It becomes a hardcover the parents read long after the shower is over.
Start a baby book See how it worksA baby shower produces a pile of cards. They are opened in a room full of people, glanced at, and then they live in a box in a closet until somebody clears it out. The advice in them is often the most useful thing anyone gives the new parents, and it is the part most likely to be lost.
A memory book keeps it. Each person writes one page — a wish for the child, what they learned in their own first year as a parent, a story about the mother or father as a baby themselves. Photos go in alongside, so the grandparents' albums end up in the same book as the ultrasound.
It also solves the distance problem. The aunt in another state, the college friend who cannot travel, the grandmother who is not well enough to come — all of them can add a page, and none of it depends on being in the room.
Most people contribute in the last few days, so give a deadline and expect a rush.
The baby's name if you have one, a photo of the parents-to-be, the due date, and a deadline for contributions.
Both sides of the family, the group chat, the coworkers, the friends who are not invited to the shower but want to say something.
Wishes, advice and photos arrive and are arranged into finished pages. You review each one before it goes in.
Order the hardcover for the shower, or leave the project open and print once the baby is actually here.
The same words, in something the parents will still have when the child can read them.
Two sets of relatives who may not know each other well all contribute to the same place, without anyone coordinating.
Anyone with the link can add a page from anywhere, so the guest list is not the contributor list.
Scans and phone pictures of prints are enhanced on upload, which matters when grandparents send their own baby photos.
The layout engine builds each page. Nobody spends the third trimester with a glue stick.
What people actually know about the first year ends up somewhere findable instead of in a card box.
A 10-inch square matte hardcover, written by everyone who was glad they were coming.
“Write something for the baby” produces blank pages. A question produces good ones.
Nothing is owed until you order a book, and gifts from contributors apply straight to the print cost.
Create the project, invite everyone, and gather photos and stories for free. You only pay if you print.
A 10-inch square matte hardcover with matte interior pages, plus shipping. Extra pages are $1.25 each.
Friends and family can chip in toward printing — each $1.25 covers one page of the finished book.
Three to four weeks before the shower is comfortable. Give people two to three weeks to write, then allow roughly 96 hours for production plus shipping if you want it printed in time.
Yes. The project stays open until you close it, so you can collect through the shower, the birth and the first weeks, then print once. Some people print twice — a PDF for the shower and a hardcover later.
It does, and better than a signature book — guests can add their page on a phone at the shower, and everyone who could not come contributes the same way.
Leave the name field as something like “Baby Sullivan” and change it later. Nothing in the book is locked until you order the print.
A hardcover is $34.95 for the first 20 pages, then $1.25 for each page after that, plus shipping. Twenty-five contributors comes to about $41.20. The PDF is free.
Yes — additional copies of the same book can be ordered, which is common when both sets of grandparents want one.
Other occasions people build books for.
Start the project, send the link to both families, and hand the parents a book instead of a pile of cards.
Start a baby book