During the first year of a baby's life, the stages of growth and development come in an astonishing rush. In addition to snapshot-filled albums, there are many ways to document the changes, both big and small, as a baby comes into his or her own.
One idea is to trace your infant's hand at varying intervals. Use a sharpened pencil to trace the outline of his or her hand onto a sheet of colored paper. You may find that it's easier to do the tracing while your baby is asleep. Repeat the process every few months using a different color paper each time.
When you have a year's worth of tracings, cut them out, write the child's name under them, and mount the paper with acid-free tape onto an acid-free mat cut to fit inside the frame you've selected. You can purchase the acid-free materials at a crafts store.
I do something like this, but I did my baby's foot print. They had it done in the hospital, I then did it at 3 weeks of age, and then 2 months, 3 months and every month until a year old. After that i do it on their birthday. I also add some journaling to it each time. At 7 months trying to crawl, at 9 months trying to stand, etc. It's great to see their feet get bigger and they like to look at it on their birthdays to see how little they used to be and how big they are now.
I'm going to try this project using the handprints of my three children...all in one frame. I'd love to capture the sizes of their hands at a particular stage in their life...what an amazing keepsake!