Sweet Baby Gifts

My cousin is 19 weeks pregnant and her unborn son was just diagnosed with anencephaly. For those of you who don’t know, anencephaly is a neural tube defect that causes the baby to be born without most of the skull and brain. It is a fatal condition and most babies that are carried to term (whose mothers decide not to terminate the pregnancy upon diagnoses) die during labor/birth or shortly after. Anyway, I am trying to make sure she gets as many keepsakes of her baby when he is born as possible to remember him by and I am looking for ideas. I know the general hand and feet ink prints, as well as plaster ones but I am looking for more than that. Any suggestions would be more than appreciated and God bless those of you who make suggestions based upon experience.

I am not sure if this store is just located in Michigan or if it is across the United States, but google "Things Remembered". They have beautiful items that are personally engraved with whatever you want, and when I was shopping for Christmas they had a beautiful baby section. You can even bring in things that the store doesn’t sell and get them engraved. They have blankets, frames, time capsules, glasses, snow globes, watches - basically ANYTHING you can imagine, and it’s all of the highest quality. If she does carry her son to term, chances are she may not want pictures taken of her son in the state he will be born in. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. But if they do footprints / finger prints, you could get a small picture frame engraved for her with her son’s name and they can frame the prints in memorial of his life. You could get a custom blanket done with his name. Another idea is to create a photo album of your cousin and her husband/boyfriend during her pregnancy if there are many photographs of her or anything like that up until his birth, and place his footprints and finger prints there with a nice poem. You can check etsy.com for custom crafts, blankets, clothing, etc. Everything is hand made and you could probably find a very beautiful album or anything else that you wanted.

Good luck to you and your family in this difficult time.

mamas and papas do some gorgeous silver pieces for good prices like silver rattles, they are lovely

Hi everyone,

I am looking for some input from other moms. I started a small/home business a few years ago that I did on the side of working at my full time job. I am now trying to expand it to a full time status as I had a beautiful baby girl almost 7 months ago and have no intention of going back to work.

I am a photographer, which I know is a very competitive field as they are a dime a dozen, however I also do pregnant bell cast and 3D baby hand and feet castings (which in my area has very little competition). Right now I am in the process of networking and will be doing a bunch of baby shows in the spring.

The question I have for all of you mom and dads out there is about promotional items. I am donating to the "goodie" bags at these events, and I am trying to find a creative way to put coupons in them since I can’t put an actually physical item from my business in them.

What would catch your eye? I am planning on offering a big discount or freebie offer, but I want it to be more eye catching. Any ideas?

Such sweet keepsakes! I love these and have a cast of my grandson’s hand! Precious!

Miniatures:
You could make up tiny miniatures, using a play baby doll hand or foot…a smaller doll, so that you could make several with the material you use and cut costs (maybe use some of the modeling clay type material??), make a hole in it to tie a pretty ribbon and attach your business card to each - and do them in SPRING colors since you’re doing the baby shows in the spring! Also, the pretty pastel spring colors also come in gender-safe colors. ~:)

Photo collage:
What about a coupon made into a nice postcard type PHOTO collage of your previous clients’ casts - the card could be a combination and example of a finished product of a foot, hand, etc. This would also advertise and showcase your photography, of course.

Stickers:
You could also put 1 small pack of non-gender scrapbook stickers (items or sayings) in each goodie bag or attach to miniatures for the mom to use in her baby book, etc. Not sure what your budget plan is, but these are fairly inexpensive at the dollar stores and have a large number of stickers in the package.

These things could serve as keepsakes as well (the miniature could be used for an ornament or decoration for bday party later, etc.) and the stickers would most assuredly be utilized by mom in some way.

I’m sure whatever you do will be welcomed by each mom! It’s so exciting to see what is in a goodie bag!! Have fun at your spring baby shows!

We are making way for Christmas, so A LOT has to go. He is partial to few things, me to many (we still have some baby keepsakes in his room that I cannot make myself donate). Suggestions?

gahhh, I have such a hard time with TOYS! I thought packing up old clothes was bad until we did toy clear outs…it’s terrible. you remember when they played with THAT toy and they did developmental milestones and stuff (!!!!) with THAT TOY and it was something someone gave to him and blah blah blah. toys are the worst.

anyways, what we do is — try just packing up stuff that he hasn’t used within the last few months or so — we have specific colored totes for certain stuff…one kind is stuff I (a) want to save for life or for the next baby; one kind is stuff that I (b) know is sort of junky and garbagey that could be donated but I don’t want to; and one is stuff that I (c) want to save and maybe give to people who I know who have babies…

the (c) stuff has already gone out the window because I do know someone with a younger baby.. the (b) stuff has been sitting in storage for a while and I’m not even going to look at it before I drop it off at goodwill, which I fully intend on doing soon…I know I didn’t need stuff in (b) but if it’s out of sight for a little while and put in a box, then I can get rid of (b) box when I realize that my kid doesn’t play with it or need it anymore…am I making any sense? I’m in a turkey coma so pardon me — but I’ve split stuff up in three groups and that works for me. gah, I’m also remembering stuff that’s in the (b) totes and it’s making me feel weird.. but if i just kept all that shit I’d be a hoarder. make yourself do it and hang on to the totes while they’re closed for a while and then when you realize that you haven’t pulled anything out of that tote, don’t open it and just give away the entire thing. kids will play with that stuff and it will be far more useful to a family who NEEDS it, versus it sitting in your basement or living room…just keep reminding yourself of that.

I definitely feel like a freak right now, lol. your question made me sort out my whole feelings about this subject…I’ve been writing and rewriting my feelings for a good time now, lmao. waah, it’s hard.

GOOD LUCK with it, lol. I’ve got to do it soon too.

The shower is this Sunday and I have the unscramble the baby words game, the guess the number of jelly beans in the baby bottle game, and this game called mr. right. Also the guests will be writing notes to me or the baby for a nice keepsake for her when she’s older. Anymore game ideas? I need a game for about 3 winners. Thanks so much!

Banana bobbing, like apple bobbing but more fun.

Aside from a photo album…

I bought a "Precious Moments" kit at a craft-store and made an impression of my daughter’s hand. It looks like a little hand-statue. But it’s very sweet and shows me how little she once was.

A girl I know had every person in the family/going to the shower sew a square of a quilt with a different letter then later had it sewed together by a friend. What is something similar I could so for a friend that’s having a baby shower that each person could make a piece and out it together later?

the quilt was a great idea! another idea might be a scrapbook…similar to a baby book that the parents can fill out, but it’s made by the friends & family, much more personal. the various pages would include info related to the family instead of a generic "one size fits all" type of book from the store.

Most of it is girl clothes with some neutral stuff. I have already gone through everything and gotten the keepsake pieces. Nobody else I know is planing on having a baby soon so we don’t need the clothes any more.

Salvation Army is the best place that you can donate your old baby clothes.

I am 16 weeks pregnant and we recently purchased a keepsake baby book. I was wondering when to start filling it out, because it asks a lot of stuff about the pregnancy, like what we felt when we first found out, ultrasound pictures, things that made mommy sick, and so forth. I’m afraid if I wait much longer I will start forgetting some of the stuff, should I start filling it out now?

Girl close the computer and get started since yes you will forget and things will change and if your afraid of that put on the side how many weeks along you are, just in case you change within your pregnancy. I always enjoy going back to it and reading it although some things where left blank since I bought it to late.

hello, my older sister is expecting her first baby in november.
although i am only 14, and only get £50 a month from my paper round and £20 a month pocket money, i really want to get the perfect gift that my niece/nephew can keep forever. my sister is very sentimental so she’ll probably keep every gift that the baby receives, and i just really want to get something really special. I’ve been searching online for a while, but can’t find much.
I was thinking something along the lines of a piece of jewellery, but as we don’t yet know the sex, i’m open to all options I’d just like to say thank you in advance, you have no idea how much this means to me

caitlin x

My daughter loves scrap-booking and she is making the cutest thing for her newest grandchild. I’ll tell you about it and see what you think. You could take your time and spend a little bit at a time, but when you are done, it would be such a good keepsake. She got one of those small scrapbooks, not the huge ones and collected pictures of everybody in the family,. plus family pictures of other things, parties, holidays, etc. Each page has a picture and a letter of the alphabet. Mommy, or course, for the letter M and Daddy’s picture for the letter D and for A, Aunt Caitlin, or course. With each picture, she writes something in carefully printed script. For instance, A is for Aunt Caitlin who loves you so much she will babysit for free. Get the idea? She puts the cute little scrapbook stickers by each picture and uses different colored paper. Some graphics you would not even have to buy. You could take them right off the computer and print them out.
It is so cool and the baby will look at the bright pictures and love it even when it is small. And, it is something to keep forever. It would take a lot of planning on your part but you seem to really care about the baby and it would be a gift with a lot of love. I think your sister would love it for the sentimental value alone.