A children's book: Princesses.

During a cold day this past January, Leah and I decided to make a book about princesses. I asked her to name things that princesses do and I wrote them down. When she finished, we had a decent list of random (yet cohesive) thoughts about princesses. I stapled sheets of construction paper together to form a little book and wrote her name on the front and that was that... or so I thought.

A month went by and it came to me: Why not make an actual children's book that we can read to her at bedtime?  I used her thoughts, word for word, on each page of the book and did some simple illustrations using watercolor paints, a scanner and Adobe Illustrator.  Then I used Blurb's BookWright program and self-published it on their website.  What came out exceeded my expectations.

Below is a preview of the book:

Princesses by Leah Stenzel, Matthew Stenzel

I think we made a pretty good team.  Here's Leah holding the first copy:

From now on, whenever she has doubts about herself or thinks she can't do something, I'll just show her this book and remind her how smart, creative and powerful she actually is.