delia creates

color your summer, crafting, kids, kids create, parenting, photography, tutorial ·

Rainbow…DIY I Spy Books

I can’t believe this is our last tutorial post for the series!

What better way to go out than with Rainbow!
Today I am going to share a colorful project to make FOR your kids to keep them busy during all your summer travels:
It’s a ton of fun to make with and around the kids too.
You just don’t want them to help TOO much, so that the book is still somewhat of a surprise and will remain novel enough to keep their attention later.
We prepped our white kid table and set it against our white wall. Posterboard would work well also.
Then we pulled out almost every toy we own and set up fun towers, scenes, and messes with them.

I tried to make sure every picture had a theme. And the kids just loved having every toy out at once {and me being okay with it! 🙂 Ha!}
Once I was done with a picture they would carry the toys off to the other side of the room to go play.

Before creating a new picture or scene, I pulled aside a few toys and took pictures of them for the page that lists the toys they need to search for.

I made a collage of those “to find” items in picasa {well for most of the pictures} and added text in picasa as well.

Then I printed all my collages and pictures up.
And quickly slid them into these little $1 photo albums from Walmart:

Easy peasy…

To make them look more polished, I made these “cover pages” for the front of the books in picnik. The cover opening is larger than 4×6 so I just taped my picture on top of the existing cover that comes with the book.

Here they are all filled up…

With still some room to grow.
I thought it would be fun to put word searches back here, family photos, tic-tac-toe grids – and get dry erase markers to use with them. Lots of possibilities…
These pages are great for a non-reader…
And here are some I made for Owen who can read…
We have actually been using these for Church too. I thought they would lose interest once they had found all the items, but they still love them.
Well…Owen does more than Reid but I’ll count that as a success!
I think seeing their own toys as apart of the book is really cool for them.
 Don’t you love this face? So focused. 🙂
I can’t wait to use them for our road trip coming up!

Thank you so much for reading and following along with this series.

We are going to wrap up the Color My Summer contest this week. Remember, you have just until tomorrow at 8 PM to get your entries in.

And be sure to stop by Kojodesigns for a great
ROY G BIV project from Aesthetic Nest!

Edited to add: I have had several requests for my images. I am not sharing my I Spy book images right now. I feel like the fun of the project is found in taking pictures of your own toys and belongings, thus creating a memory keepsake as well as a fun “toy” for your kids.

Tips for taking your own pictures:

– Consider buying some white poster board to serve as background to your pictures.
– Take your pictures by a bright window so you can use natural light.
– Don’t forget to take individual pictures of the objects you want your child to find in the larger/whole picture. Picasa is a free, easy program to use to make photo collages of those “to find” objects.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Such a darling idea, Delia! And beautifully executed. Since it looks like a bomb went off in my playroom after having cousins over this weekend perhaps this is what I should do while cleaning up!

    Reply

  3. Oh my gosh! This is incredibly awesome! We are planning a trip to Savannah in July. It's a 14 hour drive. I'm going to start working on this for my little guy. Thank you so so so much!!

    Reply

  4. I am so making this for my niece and nephew for birthdays! I will use my mother in law's toys so it seems like they are visiting grandma's every time they check the book out. Thanks for the idea. I love that these are no-sew! The sewn quiet books seem like too much work for me! 🙂

    Reply

  6. That is so amazing. I think that's simple enough to do but looks lovely (um, cool) put together. 🙂 I'll bet you could do a lot of things with themes like that. Thanks for a great idea.

    Reply

  7. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this idea!!!! My daughter is only 2 so I may change it up a bit for now, but I still love the idea and WILL make one for her when she is a little older! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  8. That is so great. I love that you used your own toys too with a theme. Makes me really want to try to do one of these before our trip. This has been a fun series to follow.

    Reply

  9. Delia! This is amazing! I LOVE this idea-oh so clever! Thanks for letting us be part of your color my summer!
    xoxo Jamie @ thecraftingchicks.com

    Reply

  10. I love love love this idea! We're taking a car trip in a few weeks and these would be wonderful to have in the car. Thank you for the tutorial!

    Reply

  25. Hi! We just LOVED these homemade i-spy books and featured them here at our blog, MPM School Supplies Blog. We were sure to give photo/idea credit, as well as a link back to your website, but we'd love for you to take a look at it and, if there are any problems, we'll be certain to take the

    Reply

  28. so stinkin' cute! I have had photos on my computer for years -meaning to do this! But I love your idea of the "rainbow" and so I might just start all over! My boys would love this. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  29. You are BRILLIANT! What a fabulous idea! I can't wait to make a few books for my kids … we always need quiet things for church. Thanks for the inspiration!

    Reply

  34. What a great idea! I would love to make some of these for my grandkids, but I no longer have the variety of toys. I was just wondering if it would be possible to make your pictures available.

    Reply

  35. Just found these and your website! LOVE LOVE LOVe. I am thinking of making these for a gift.My kids are older and I don't have a "kid" toy collection. Would you please shareor sell your pics. BTW, I have not heard of picasa..interesting. Thank you! Erin [email protected]

    Reply

  36. Incredibly well done!! I remember my kids having such fun with I spy. I think I'm going to store and put away their old toys, but first I'm going to make something similar for their children, when they have some!! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  37. As you willing to share the pictures? I'd love to print the themes you did as I don't have the time to make my own but LOVE the concept. If you are, my address is:
    ladyverlina AT yahoo DOT com

    Thanks a MILLION!

    Reply

  39. You are a genius! I can only imagine how much time you spent piecing together all those pictures in such a cute way! I would love to make these for my nephews but I, like the lady above, don’t own any toys of my own! If you could find it in your heart to share your fabulous pictures, 2 little boys would be super excited at Christmas this year! 😉 [email protected]

    Reply

  47. Delia! I am so happy to have found your blog!! You are indeed blessed with talent and creativity. Thank you for sharing so freely.
    Loved your new Christmas gift game!!
    Do you have patterns in your tutorials?

    Reply

  48. I love your blog! I also love this idea, but sadly have not accumulated enough toys to take such fun pictures. My baby is only 4 months old and I would love to make this for my 2 month old nephew. I know you won't share, but would you consider selling them? I would love to have these pictures to share with my nephew. Thanks! My email is [email protected]

    Reply

  50. I belong to a quiet book group and we do swaps. I’m suggesting we do one of these as a swap. I’m so excited – I LOVE the idea. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

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