Baby Gift Shadow Box

When my children were born, I saved some of those things of importance that reminded me of their birth, their hospital wrist bands, their hospital pictures, their hospital crib cards, etc.  Recently I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought what a great way to display your child's collectibles.  Well my babies are grown men now and one of them is expecting his first child, a son.  I figured this would be a great gift for him at the baby shower.  I had my hubby find the storage tub with baby memorabilia in it and found my boy's things.  For this project I used his hospital going home outfit, the ankle ID band he wore, his first picture at the hospital, his crib card, the measuring tape that measured his length, and a ceramic plate my best friend from high school made when my boys were born.  It had their vital statistics on it and a cute little poem about boys.

I happened into Jo Ann's during one of their Moonlight Madness sales and got a 16 x 20 shadow box frame in basic black.  I took off the back and covered the insert paper with blue scrapbook paper for the background of the shadowbox. It also complemented the outfit he wore home.  I attached the outfit on the right side of the background and I used fasteners to hold them in place on the board so it wouldn't slip down board.  Along the top the case I put the measuring tape and with his length circled on the tape.  In the upper left I put his going home from the hospital picture here.  I cropped it an oval and added a blue and white set of mats under the picture to make it more visible.  Below his picture I put his crib card from his hospital bassinet. I also mounted it on coordinating mats as well.  Between the picture and the outfit I put his hospital ID band.  Finally, in the lower left corner of the box I set the ceramic plate my best friend made.

After getting it all mounted in the frame, I didn't have any room for his first shoes, so I had to come up with a different idea for those.  I was describing to my friend Judith what I'd made and about my dilemma about the shoes.  She gave me the solution which you see here.  I tied the shoe strings of the baby shoes in bows and then ran a 3/8" blue grosgrain ribbon with brown edging through the lace.  One for each shoe and one longer than the other so they would hang at different lengths.  I knotted the ends of the ribbons for each shoe and knotted those two together.  The back of the frame had two eyelets.  I picked up another role of blue ribbon like the one I used on the diaper cake.  I cut two pieces of ribbon the same length.  I knotted one end around the eyelet on the back of each side of the frame and brought them together at the top of the frame tying the first part of the bow and then looping the ribbons with the shoes through the knot and draped them in the middle and tied the bow.


And here is the finished project.  I hope my son likes it, maybe he will hang it in his son's room.  What a special treat it was to make for him.  I'm sure he will be a great Daddy!


Congrats to Nathan and Tiffany!

Until the next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.