Homemade brag books make a great gift for a great mother

The small books are ideal for mothers or grandmothers to carry in a purse.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Celebrate Mother's Day this year by creating a handmade brag book for a proud mother or grandmother. A compact, purse-sized album full of the happy, loving faces of children or grandchildren is the perfect way to say "thanks for all you do."
A few basic craft tools and a few minutes are all you need to create a treasured, personalized mini album.
How to do it
The ideal purse-sized brag book is no bigger than 3 by 3 inches, so think small. If you have an 8-1/2-by-11-inch sheet of paper, you can make a little 2-by-3 inch mini book by using a basic folding technique. Cut a long strip of paper that measures 3 inches high by 11 inches long. Accordion-fold the paper in 2-inch increments. You might need to trim a little extra paper off at the end, but you should be left with a tiny five-page book for displaying photos.
Since you're working with such a tiny book, you aren't left with a lot of space to add decorative elements, but stickers or punches will fit nicely. The best way to add a bit of pizzazz to your tiny pages is to mat your photos on paper that complements your photos and the pages in your album.
For example, if you used tan-colored paper to create the album, choose a complementary colored paper or a patterned paper for the mats. Cut your photo mats just slightly smaller than the size of your pages so that you have a tan border around the mat.
Obviously, you're not going to be able to glue your 4-by-6-inch photos into a 2-by-3 inch album. You're going to need to cut your photos to a size that's slightly smaller than the photo mats you just created. So you have a few creative options:
Cut your existing photos down to the appropriate size. You can create a simple cropping tool that will help you determine which photos to crop and where to crop them. Determine the size you need your photos to be (slightly smaller than your photo mats) and, using a craft knife, cut that size square from the center of a piece of cardstock.
As you look through your photos, place the piece of cardstock over the photo so you can look through the cut-out square and see what the picture will look like cropped down to a smaller size. Look for details like tiny baby feet or a close-up of a smiling face. Then, use your craft knife or paper trimmer to cut the picture down to size.
Other ways
If you have close-up photos of your children that you'd like to use, make color copies and reduce the size of the image until it's the appropriate size for your album.
Scan your photos into your computer and use the cropping tools that come with most scanning software to downsize your photos. Then print them out onto photo paper and use scissors, a craft knife or paper trimmer to cut them out.
Use a glue stick, double-sided tape or adhesive tabs to adhere your photos to the photo mats and the photo mats to the pages of the mini-album.
It's a good idea to put the album into a small, protective envelope or to create a tiny sleeve so that the album doesn't tear while it's being tossed around a purse. This way, the proud recipient can pull out her little brag book and show off the precious faces of her loved ones whenever the mood strikes.