Preserving Baby Memories in a Shadowbox Frame: A DIY Project

I am a sentimental person. My husband teases me for it, but that's ok. I love creating photo albums on Shutterfly, looking through old photos and cards, remembering old days, etc. I have never been very good at handling change, and it's probably because I get so stuck in the past sometimes! But I still wouldn't change that about myself because I really do enjoy remembering the past, and truthfully, I'm getting better at handling change as I get older because I am realizing that change is good and necessary in life.

One thing that comes with being sentimental is keeping things. Believe me, we've got enough "stuff" without me keeping anything extra as it is! I could not for the life of me ever part with my baby's hospital bracelets from their birth day/week or with their first articles of clothing, ultrasounds, etc (but what mom could?!) So for each of my children, I have created a shadowbox memory frame filled with their newborn sentiments. I am most proud of the last one I created for my little baby and I wanted to share the process as well as the end result here.

1) To begin, go to your local Joann's, Michael's or Hobby Lobby and pick up a 12x12 sized shadowbox frame. This has proven to be a good size for me, but you can go smaller or larger as needed, of course. I happened to hit up Michaels' during a sale and the shadowbox frames were Buy One, Get One Free!  I'm saving the other one for another project.

While you are at your craft store, visit the scrapbooking section and pick out an appropriate piece of scrapbook paper for your background...I chose a pink paper for my baby girl. You should not have any problems finding a paper in the same size as the frame. You will also need to pick up some thumbtacks and double-sided scrapbooking tape, if you do not have any on hand at home. And of course, you will also need to gather your sentiments that you plan to use. In this project, I used my baby's ultrasound, her newborn hat (which had been mine as a newborn, too!), the white t-sihrt she wore at the hospital, her birth announcement, both her and my hospital bracelet, and the hospital tag that was used to label her crib during the hospital stay.

2) Now that you have gathered all the proper materials, take apart the shadowbox frame from the backing of it. Make sure you check on the back of the frame that the hanging tool is facing the right way when you are beginning your work.

Now, take your scrapbook paper and line it (on the back side) with scrapbook tape/double-sided tape. Make sure you get the corners, especially. Flip the paper over and place it (correctly aligned) onto the board from your shadowbox.

3) Next, take all of your sentiments and place them on the backing WITHOUT gluing them on. You want to make sure everything fits properly and looks nice before you begin to glue anything.

4) Once you have arranged everything to your liking, you can begin gluing or tacking on each item. I used glue or double-sided tape for flat items, such as the hospital bracelets, hospital tag and birth announcement. For the thicker items, I used thumbtacks to pin them down. The tacks did stick out a bit on the other side of the backing, but being that the shadowbox will be hanging or propping against a wall, this really is not important.

5) Finally, once you've finished attaching your items, place the backing into the frame and adjust as needed...you may see that something is loose (like the t-shirt, which I had to adjust several times) and play with it, or add more tape/tacks accordingly.

Here is my finished product. I love it!!