My mom sent Ophelia an
I Spy book about a year ago. She loves it. She flips through the book, pointing out different things on the pages. The
I Spy books are really big, though, and certainly not suited to air travel. I'm a crafty girl and I had an idea in mind before one of our long plane trips last year. The original book kept Phee entertained for quite a while and that would be quite useful for the plane. So, I got my magazines and scissors out and started finding little pictures to make Phee her own little I Spy book.
It took a lot more pictures than I thought it would. I had to go back twice to find more things. I also needed very small pictures- lots smaller than I'd originally thought.
So, here's what I did.
I created a 6 inch x 6 inch text box in Publisher. Then I found some pictures of things I didn't think I'd be able to find in magazines: Elmo, baseballs, footballs, a zamboni (she likes sports!), Fraggles. Those photos were printed on the 6 x 6 pages. Then, I just started gluing the magazine cut outs onto the pages.
I made sure there was white space around every image and that none were touching. That way Phee has lots to look at, but the pages don't get messy with images running together.
After the pages were finished, I created another 6 x 6 page and made a cover for the book using printed images. I laminated the pages and used rings to bind the book.
Phee loved it! She looked at it for most of the two flights we had for the trip last year. It's a car book for her now and she discovers it in her basket of car toys every few weeks. She'll still look through it for long stretches at a time. It's not as big of a hit as it was a year ago, but it's still fun. And, for the great entertainment and quiet time it provided on the plane last year, it was definitely worth my time to create it for her.
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