After seeing a few ideas posted on other sites, I decided to take the time to make my own church ABC quiet book for David — one that was a little more my style. It includes all the letters of the alphabet with a corresponding picture and scripture or Primary song.
The Church website recently changed their Terms of Use, basically saying that blogs and websites can no longer redistribute artwork owned or licensed with lds.org, so I can no longer share the original ABC book that I made that includes the artwork.
Download the clear alphabet templates HERE.
How to use the template:
Download the template zip file containing letters A-Z and corresponding gospel-related theme and description.
Open the computer program of your choice. With programs like Photoshop, open the picture you want to represent the letter and scale to 4×6 then place the corresponding template file over the picture from your computer, OR open the template and then scale the picture of your choice to fit. Export the file as JPG and you’re done. The letter templates are already 4×6, no scaling or changing the size needs to happen.
For MS Word Users:
After downloading the zip file, open MS Word and make the page size 4×6 (File, Page Setup, 4×6), then set all margins to 0 (a dialogue box will pop-up, click okay and continue). Open the picture you want for the letter you’re working on and scale it to fit your 4×6 page or use the Height and Width adjuster found on the Format Picture tab (mine appears as a purple tab when I have the picture selected). Then open the template file you want to use and drag it over the picture (you may have to adjust the Text Wrap and Order (bring to front/send to back), all found on the Format Picture tab). MS Word doesn’t save/export to JPG formats, but if you can save as a PDF and then open the PDF and save as a JPG. It’s a little tedious, but works. In MS Word, the final image will have a thin white border around it (like the picture below), so far I haven’t been able to find a fix for that, but it’s a minor thing.
*A Note About Scaling: If you scroll back up to the beginning of the post, you’ll notice that for the C – Commandments page the picture of Moses is cropped. The original picture is much larger and when scaled normally to fit a 4×6, didn’t fit well and looked disproportionate. To make it not look “stretched” or “squished” I scaled the picture down a little and then moved the focal point of the picture (in this case Moses) into the 4×6 frame and the rest of the picture overlaps the edges. When it’s printed, only what appears in the 4×6 frame shows, thus Moses fits nicely on the 4×6 page without being all squishy. I hope that made sense.
For my ABC Book, I used pictures from the LDS Image Libraries and personal family photos. Browse the gallery and find the pictures you want and save them to your computer. Use the template to its full potential and use personal pictures for Baptism, Family, Missionary Work (picture of dads, moms, uncles, etc or ward missionaries), Parents, Grandparents, etc. There are a lot of ways to make this unique for your children.
Be aware that when you upload your JPGs to have them printed, the photo lab may ask you for a copyright release for the artwork (this seems to be the case mostly with Walmart). Taking a copy of the Terms of Use from lds.org will be helpful to have in your pocket (highlight the pertinent section to speed things up).
The 4×6 photos fit nicely in the clear, plastic photo albums you can buy at most Walmarts, Targets, Walgreens, and some dollar stores.
A note about printing: If you have a local Walgreens, sign up on their website for their weekly ads. Walgreens has some pretty great monthly photo deals, especially if you plan on having more than one book made (they regularly have buy 25, get 25 free deals or off 40-50% off prints). I’m not affiliated with Walgreens in any way, I just wanted to share the deals.
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012, 8:31 pm | 
crafts/diy | 
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