Quick item of business: Our randomly selected winner of the FREE digital Project Life book is … Joanne Villet (United Kingdom)!
And … Rebecca Foxworth (California)! You, my dear, are the one who has inspired many to try the picture-a-day concept specifically for these last 12 weeks of 2010. So YOU are getting a free 2nd copy of your digital Project Life book as well!
Both of you shoot an email to projectlife@beckyhiggins.com and we’ll hook you up.
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Traditions have been on my mind. Little traditions that document life and preserve personal history and family history. Like getting each of our kids’ handprints on a canvas every time they turn a year older. (We just had 2 birthdays last month.)
I’ve talked about these canvas handprints before – here and here. But I don’t think I ever mentioned how I identify each of the handprints, telling how old the child was and when we did each respective handprint. So here’s a look at the backs of those canvases. Just used a skinny Sharpie marker for the labeling.
Here’s Crew’s entire collection as well:
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Another “small” thing I did recently is have Claire write the entire alphabet together on one piece of paper. I love seeing the whole alphabet together and of course I’m a sucker for my kids’ handwriting. Perfect combination. Porter did this when he was about this same age (you can see it displayed in our play room in this post). I’ll try to remember to have Crew do this in a few years too, when he’s about 5 and learning to write. So I guess this has become another tradition of sorts.
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How about you? What’s one little tradition you do — as a family or as an individual — that has to do with documenting life and preserving your story in some way?
Tags: birthday, canvas, handprints, tradition
Becky, what fabulous ideas…love that alphabet. going to have to give this a try…wondering what my crafty little 7 year old will do…write in all one color or multiple colors like your sweet Claire.
Becky, I love reading your blog. You have such wonderful posts about preserving family and creating traditions. I have an 8 month old and I am happy to see this post and plan to do it on her birthday 2/14. Thanks so much.
Oh why couldn’t I have found you before having kids!! What an awesome idea for the handprints. Unfortunately, my daughter just turned 6 and twin boys are 18 months. I so wish I had done this with them!!
I’m right there with ya .. my kids are 4, 7 and 10 .. would have LOVED the alphabet thing!! *sigh*
We take each child’s first day of school picture by the front door. I love seeing how they grow from year to year based on where the doorknob and lock set reach on their body. Hard to believe how much they grow in a year’s time!
I do that too!
awesome – i love these ideas. Thanks for sharing. I’m a sucker for my kids handwriting too
I love the handprint idea but am wondering for how long do you do it? Is there an endpoint somewhere? I am sure it is whenever you feel like it or when your kids thinks you are silly but want to know your thoughts. Thanks!
i take a picture of my son every year around his birthday wearing one of my husband’s white shirts. I started taking them when he was one and he just had his 8th birthday on Friday so it’s on my list of photos to take this week. It’s fun to look back and see how big the shirt used to be and how it’s fitting more and more.
On my daughter’s first birthday, I asked each guest to sign his/her name on a pink tablecloth (hemmed cotton fabric). My mother embroidered each name with the same color floss for the year. Next year we did the same thing. We are SO BLESSED that this continued for 21 years (we voluntarily stopped). She has a gorgeous keepsake with hand stitching from her grandmother. It’s amazing that when we get it out people like to see who attended that year and how cute children’s handwriting can be. Some signatures are large, some small, some cursive, some backward letters. It is so full of history! It’s a treasure for sure.
Somehow/somewhere you should post a picture of the tablecloth. Would love to see a picture of it.
I write a letter to each of my kids on the first day of school, ideally. They’ve never seen them, mostly because they were too young at first, and now because I am going to put them in their books and surprise them at some point. I write about things I am proud of them for, what they’ve learned since last year, etc. It’s October already and I haven’t done this year’s letters. If it gets done before Christmas, I’ll feel good about it.
Traditions: We’ve done photo Christmas cards every year since my daughter was born (6 years strong). We also enter a scrapbook page in our State Fair each year (btw my daughter won 3rd place this year -ROCK ON!). And finally I write a poem about my daughter & niece every Thanksgiving (been doing that for many years before they were even born) and read to the family before we feast on turkey!
Love the idea of the handwriting, I am going to get my 5 year old to do that.
We had each family member write a letter to our boys when they turned one, we put them up and will give them the letters when they are older. Each Christmas I write the boys a letter and put it in our December albums. oh and I take pictures of the first day of school. I love the idea of the handprints! My boys are 2 & 5….think it is too late to start that??? well, I did do a handprint and included it in their first year scrapbooks.
I must tell you..I just got in my Project Life last week and I am so excited to get started on it! But, it is a Christmas present and my hubby said I had to wait till Christmas to get it! I feel like a kid again, the anticipation is killing me!!
Wish you would have been around when my kids were little! I love your little traditions … we drew around hands and feet each birthday, and weighed and measured them. I’ve done the same thing with my grandsons, although it’s tougher to do since they live out of state. I love the handprint on canvas …
Oh, Becky…thank you. How wonderfully sweet of you! What a nice thing to wake up to on a Monday morning!
You. Made. My. Day.
I love traditions like this too!! There’s just something about looking back each year…a little piece of childhood revisited! My daughter has loved swimming since she was little, so each year I take a picture of her in the same spot by our neighborhood pool. It’s fun to see her grow along with the tree in the background. It’s also fun to see how her swimsuits have changed from the cute, pink, frilly baby photo to the techno-colored two-piece of a 10 year old.
Each birthday eve, I take a photo of my son holding up on his fingers the age he will be the next day. I made a great page recently of all those photos.
These are beautiful! I haven’t really had a tradition other than taking a photograph. Hmm…
I’ll have to put some thought into that. I loved reading all the readers traditions. They have given me some ideas!
Love the handwriting idea but it’s too late – my boys are 17 and 19. On the first day of school I would take their picture together in front of the school sign but when they entered middle and high school I could no longer carry on that tradition because what if someone saw us! So, I switched to taking a picture of them, at home, standing back-to-back on the first day of school and as they got older it was amazing to see their growth. One is now 6’3″ and the other is not far behind.
Becky, one of my favorite traditions takes place right before Christmas. I have our three daughters (ages 27, 24, 22) document their highlights of the past year. It will be 15 years this Christmas since we started this. It began with drawings of their favorite things, friends, hobbies, favorite songs and more and continued with them writing (in their handwriting) stories of their life. Today, they use the computer to tell their story. When they finish, we make color copies and they give them to their grandparents for Christmas. I make a collage of pictures from that year and use it as the cover. I have two large books that I keep of the originals. Although it always is “such a chore” to get them to do it, it somehow gets done just in time. With the three of them living out of state now, I cherish these memories even more…and the extended family looks forward to them every year too!
I was just thinking about this, Becky because I saw this quilt today: http://gifts.redenvelope.com/flowers/handprint-growth-chart-quilt-30006490?viewpos=13&trackingpgroup=rbbaq.
I had wanted to do the canvases with my son, but I missed birth and one. Do you think it is too late?
Hey Jess .. I’m not Becky .. but wanted to chime in .. totally NOT to late .. I still love seeing my 9 year olds hand print .. so you’ve got plenty of years to capture Elias’ sweet little hand print!
Believe me – totally not to late!
Wow – this is really great – thank you! I think I will get started on this my son is 4 we have done other hand print pictures – but I love the canvas!
Our oldest is 4 1/2, and our youngest is 2, and we’ve managed to get a shot of the kids in front of the Christmas tree every year. The first couple years it just worked out that I had a shot, and then i started intentionally taking them – to start a tradition.
I’m hoping to pick up a small album for this soon – one shot per page, one for every year. I’m due with babe #3 in 6 weeks, so this year there will be a tiny bundle in front of the tree too.
Another tradition we’ve started is to get the kids a new pair of pajamas for Christmas – they open this one gift on Christmas eve, change into the new pajamas, and then we take the picture. It can be a bit of a gong show, but I’m not aiming for perfection, I just want to capture the kids how they really are each year. I’m looking forward to watching how the kids grow, how pajama fashions change!, and how the decorations on our Christmas tree change (or don’t change!) over the years.
Becky
One of my other favourite blogs posted about hand and footprints also
I think you and your readers will also enjoy
http://www.beyondthebaby.com.au/superorganisermum/project-week/project-1-painted-feet/
Regards
JEANETTE in Melbourne
Oh wow – amazing for me – thanks so much. Now I just need to get cracking on my Project Life book. Been procrastinating far too long!
Also LOVE the hand print tradition – have started it too. LOVE your blog
For my daughter’s 1st Christmas my mom made a plain white tree shirt. That Christmas she was 4 months old and we put her handprint on it and the year. We have add a handprint every year since….she just turned 10! We put the shirt around the tree that goes in her room!
Crew is a year old?! That was fast. Now I have the song “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof in my head. Hmmm. We have a tradition of going to “eve” Masses at Christmas and Easter. It’s kind of cool to “welcome” in the holiday. Then, on the morning of, we can be very relaxed. This really makes me think about what traditions we are creating for my family.
Every year I make or buy each of my boys a Christmas ornament. I try to either go to a paint your own pottery place or I buy something that reflects their current interest or a vacation we went on. I then put a note in each box explaining we I chose that particular ornament. When they grow up and get a place of their own they will each have a box full of nice ornaments that is a journey through their childhood.
I bought this cute birthday hat with fluffy feathery stuff and curled ribbon for her first birthday (found it on Etsy). I’m making her wear it every year – I’ll have to sew it to a bigger headband as she grows – for a photo. It was a little more challenging getting her to wear it this year for her 2nd birthday but I envision pulling it out when she’s 18 and her being exasperated and saying “Mom!” but I’ll still get my photo.
Every month on the date they were born (7th for my son and 4th for my daughter) I take a picture of them holding the same little stuffed animal they held in their birth announcement pictures. On their birthday each year I stand in the front yard and videotape them walking out the front door, off the step, and around the side of the house…when you edit them together you see them walking out the door a year older. It’s cool and symbolic of how fast they grow.
wow thats a grand idea jill!
Aww man – how cool is that video idea!!!
love how you are so organised becky. for baby number one – i did his handprint every month on a small coloured canvas and his foot print at 3,6,9 and 12 months so he has 16 little canvases hanging on his wall. Not so organised for baby number 2 , so she has black canvases but i havent been as good at using the same family of colours for each 3 months – ooopps!
plus i now wish i had done foot prints each month as hand prints are TRICKY on wee ones – but cute :> you’ve reminded me to do hers today – shes 6 months!
I love the idea of the handprints. I managed to get through my son’s entire first year with a picture of the day (he just turned one), and am now doing a photo of the week…but I am definitely adding the canvas as our yearly tradition.
My family makes a birthday sign for each member, usually with some sort of theme of whatever that person is into that year, on a large white sheet of paper. The sign hangs behind their chair at the table for a week.
My husband’s family took a 1st day of school picture every year. They are really fun to look back on!
I’ve made scrapbooks for my sister and myself for our high school graduations, and I’m working on one for my younger sister for next spring!
For the first 2-3 years of our children’s lives, we videotape them on the day they turn another month older. Then, for their birthday party, my husband compiles the videos into one large video, taking the best clips, and burning a DVD to play at the party. He sets it to music and uses cool graphics to enhance it. It’s really amazing to see the changes our children go through in a year’s time. Plus, our kids love to go back and watch their “birthday video” years later, and it’s fun to reminisce as a family.
Your ideas are fantastic.
Every year on each child’s birthday, they stand against our basement (unfinished basement of our 100+ yr old farmhouse that my husband and his 10 siblings grew up in) door, and we mark their height on the back of the door and note the date. I hope this will be fun heritage to look back on many years to come.
I have a small, 6×6 birthday scrapbook for each of my kids. I just do a quick one page layout with a picture of them on their birthday with their cake (smooshing it into their face on their first birthday, blushing while everyone sings on as pre-schoolers) and some embellishments with their age. It’s simple, but so fun to look through now that they have 6 and 4 pages each!
Great idea!!! You have some of the best ideas evah! Loving the alphabet!
One thing I am doing is a bit futuristic…but bound in traditons of our family.
I have 4 children, and while cooking meals for them, they all have certain things they love, that I make. I have been taking photos of the completed food items and am in the process of making 4 recipe books. These are only the foods they really love! They each have helped make these items.
As each leave for college, they will have this so they will know how to cook the foods that remind them of home, and a photo of the finished items.
Hopefully, they will not starve! lol
what a great idea. i luv it! and they will treasure them someday.
I do FEW THINGS- I take a picture of them every year on the first day of school with a handwritten sign that says: “This is my first day of __ grade and add the date. Sometimes I include one other detail as well. I did this even up to my sons college years. Secondly, I have everyday journals for them but I also keep just a Xmas journal (for each child) and I have everyone who is at our house for the holiday write a note in each one. I love to look back at these entries and see what our friends and family had to say to our children especially once some of the people who are no longer here with us.
What do you do with all the finished canvases. Do you hang them all somewhere in the house??
I saw your original post on these before I had kids and started the tradition myself. I now have two kids and five prints on the wall. Thanks for the great idea!
For my daughter’s first birthday, my mom created a poster with a photo of her from each month of her first year of life and titled it: Ariella’s ONE-derful Year! After the party was over I took each 8×8 scrap layout and placed it in an album. The following year I created 12 8×8 layouts with a photo of her representing each month leading up to her birthday. She will be 5 in March and I’ve continued to do so every year. I also bring out the albums from the previous years so the guests can see how she has grown. It’s been a beautiful way to capture a glance at each year and the party guests love to see it too. The layouts make for great wall decoration.
[...] handprint tradition continues. (See this post and this post for the info if you missed that [...]
[...] Canvas art prints by Becky Higgins [...]
[...] | About 5 years ago I shared more about this tradition in this blog post. Check it out for a little behind-the-canvas look at how I label the canvases (and other [...]