One of the items that comes out of the “fall decor” box every year is a Halloween Scrapbook I made for my kids one year (during one of my scrapbooking-obsessed years).

Here’s the cover:

I made it in a spiral-bound notebook (filled with heavy art paper) that I bought at Aaron Bros. I didn’t use plastic covering because I love the textile feel of paper and photos, but in retrospect (or if I were to do it over again), I’d probably cover it afterall (or use a traditional scrapbook with plastic page covers), because I had no idea how much this particular scrapbook would get so manhandled over the years! (In fact, of all the scrapbooks I’ve done for my kids, I think this is their favorite!)

Each double-page spread is devoted to one child, per year. On the right side is a set of three photos, the child’s age that year, and the date. (For the photos, I tried to have one headshot, then two full-body shots if I had them. For the date, I used a stencil and colored pens.)

On the left side is a page of thematic scrapbook paper, then my own handwriting where I tell a story about how they picked the costume, or a funny story about the costume, or trick-or-treating in it, or who we went with, or whatever.

Here’s one of Ricky’s early pages. This is the right side of the page:

And left page:

Here are some more pages I love:

The kids really love this book. Every Halloween I put it on an entryway shelf, and they always grab it and want to show all their friends their past costumes — sometimes making fun of how silly they looked (or making fun of each other!), and sometimes thinking, man! I should do that one again!

If you have little ones, I highly recommend making them a Halloween Costume Book — they’ll surely love it for years and years to come!