In the blink of an eye, baby Ansel has turned one month old. That is a huge milestone and a celebratory moment, especially since he is my lastborn. I still vividly remember how we celebrated the full month of each of the kids and it was always in the company of close family and friends. Alas, in view of the pandemic, it was not possible to hold a big party for him like what we did for the siblings.
When the hubby and I were discussing about what we could do to celebrate his first month, we had conflicting views about it. I suggested getting gift boxes containing cakes, tarts, ang ku kuehs and red eggs and delivering them to our friends and family in return for their kind blessings. He deemed it as boring and unoriginal and threw in ideas such as curating our own gift box by going around the island to hand-pick the yummiest food and package it ourselves. Well, I didn't think it was practical to pack food ourselves, not to mention unhygienic and risky, which is a big no-no in times like this.
While we were still at odds about that, something he said did make sense to me and that was his suggestion of doing a personalised Thank You card, something made with love and one-of-a-kind. That is just so me, right? I liked that idea and when he said I could do a March holiday craft project with the kids and let them help out, I started to brainstorm for the design and got excited about it. After all, I was still in confinement and it was a great way to pass time by getting crafty with the kids for a meaningful, joyous purpose.
In this Creativity 521 post, I will share with you on how our card design came about, what other surprise gift we included, Ansel's 30-day collage which was a gift from me to him, and how we went about doing everything for days and weeks.
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Thank You Card
When it comes to showing your sincerity, nothing beats a handmade card. The girls were very excited when I told them that we were going to make cards and mass produce them together. What I loved most about this project was that it was a family effort and all of us were involved in one way or another. Okay, the hubby gave the idea but didn't manage to help us with the execution but at least I had three pairs of hands who were more than willing to chip in and help out in every possible way. Here's what they did.
Guess who wrote and designed this? Well, not me, my handwriting is not that nice, I admit. Haha. This was done by Angel and I think she did such a good job with it, from the thank you banner and decorations to the word 'Joy' and the message with all our names. Some of our friends thought it was printed with a computer and were truly surprised when they knew it was handwritten by her. Great job, Angel, and keep up your love for calligraphy!
This adorable baby who is wrapped in a blanket, wears a green bow and has a streak of brown hair was drawn by Ariel. She took a few tries before she was satisfied with the final drawing and I think it was really cute. Thank you for the effort, my baby girl!
What I did was to scan Ariel's drawings and Angel's wordings, followed by mass printing them out in colour before cutting them into the shapes we wanted. To make it more special, I also added Ansel's date of birth as well as his height and weight at birth onto the baby.
As for Asher, he might not have helped in the designing but he was the one who helped with all the peeling of the double sided tape and foam tape, which amounted to hundreds of them. I was truly surprised by his patience and willingness to sit there with me and I thought it would be hard for his little fingers but he kept trying and soon got more proficient at it. Well done, my boy!
We all played a part in the cutting although I did most of it because some of the shapes were tricky to cut. The big girl helped to cut out the 'Thank you' banner while the younger ones cut out the 'Baby'. We spent hours just cutting non-stop and getting everything ready before we could begin to put them together. Craft is such a great way to train up patience, don't you agree?
Finally, the cutting was completed and we could start making the cards, woohoo!
Our cards were done by cutting blue A4 paper into half and pasting a background design - which I had printed onto white paper - onto it. Yup, we can truly say everything was done from scratch.
Next, we tied a piece of blue (blue for boy!) ribbon around the card, followed by sticking each of the cutouts in place. To make them look 3-dimensional, we used foam tape instead of the normal double sided tape. This made it much stickier and harder to handle so I had to help them to cut the tape while they peeled off the back before sticking onto the card.
Thanks to our newborn photoshoot with Ashley Low Photography (review coming up soon!), I was able to print out some cute pictures of Ansel to add to the card. I decided to cut them out in circles because round shapes are one of the easiest to cut and I thought it looked nice to put three different pictures overlapping each other on every card.
We also used foam stickers, which are thick, to create a pop-up effect for every of the photos too. We made a total of 32 cards which meant we had to cut out 96 pictures and attach 4 form stickers on each of them, amounting to a total of 384. If you add in the rest of the cutouts which each had at least 4-6 tapes on each of them and some even had two layers as I wanted it to pop up even more, it's not an exaggeration to say we cut and stuck thousands of pieces of tape. Haha. I couldn't have done it so quickly if not for the help of the two younger ones who are now experts at peeling off the back of tapes.
This was surely a memorable family craft project that we will remember for a long time to come. It turns out that small celebrations and simple cards can go a long way and bring big smiles too. We received so many compliments and thank you messages from our friends who were pleasantly surprised to get this in their mailbox and were amazed that we found time to do this amidst confinement and looking after a newborn without help. Well, when there's a will, there's a way, right? I am just glad we finished what we started and enjoyed the making process too!
Magnet
Besides a card, which I reckon does not serve much use to most people, I wanted to add in something that might come in more handy. It has to be flat so we can send it out in an envelope, light so it does not cost too much, personalised because that is what I emphasise on, and something that we can make ourselves.
I eventually decided on a magnet so that the recipients can easily stick them onto their refrigerators or any metallic surface in the house. Initially, I proposed doing a calendar but the hubby said it would then serve no purpose when 2021 is over. So I brainstormed a bit more and decided to do a to-do list so that people could just jot down what they needed to do that day.
Of course, it needs to be reusable so my plan was to laminate the magnets one by one so they could be written on with a whiteboard marker and erased easily. This took much time and effort and to jazz things up a little, I came up with a total of EIGHT different magnet designs, woohoo! Each of them had a photo of Ansel and a quote that says "Today is a good day to be happy". Yup, this quote is typical coming from A Happy Mum and both the quote and picture were made rather subtle as I wanted our friends and family to be able to use the magnet without our names plastered all over it, you know what I mean.
We came up with designs which were more kiddy and cute and others which were more sophisticated, some featured blooms while others had animals. These were in order to suit different age groups and preferences, which we put into consideration when deciding which magnet to give away to whom. I really hope they brought a smile to those who received them.
Vouchers
Lastly, we included vouchers for our friends and family to thank them for all the blessings they bestowed on Ansel and me. Yup, instead of sending 'real' food, we decided on gifting vouchers so our friends and family could use it to have an afternoon tea at the restaurants or take away something they like.
This was the first time I bought Foodline vouchers and I like that the voucher can be redeemed from 65 different brands with over 118 outlets in Singapore, including TCC, Emicakes, Glace, Eatzi Gourmet Bakery. River Ash Bakery and so on. Hopefully this gives our friends and family a wider range of options on where they can go to redeem the voucher and be able to enjoy a little treat from us.
30-Day Collage - A Special Gift from Me to You
Remember the 30-day collage I did and shared previously in my Creativity 521 post many years ago? This was my special gift for each of my children and I am so happy that to have kept up with tradition and made my fourth one. Haha. Yup, this was specially meant for baby Ansel but it also gave the rest of us an opportunity to see how he has grown and be thankful for how he came into our lives and joined our humble family.
I actually did the background, the border, the wordings and headers before he was even born. Angel was saying "Mama, Ansel is not even here and you did the board already"! It might have been foresight but I was so glad to have done it because within a couple of weeks, he had arrived and I was sooooo busy from then on.
Nonetheless, I still made time (and sacrificed sleep!) in order to choose and edit the photos, adding in funny captions, brightening the colours, making the sizes consistent, adding a outline before printing each of them one by one - from Day 1 to Day 30.
This became the main display during his full month party - which was held when he was 27 days old - and all our guests were fascinated by the collage and took time to read them one by one. Awww, thank you! See, even Ansel likes it too, haha. This is surely a precious keepsake for my preemie, who is also my lastborn, and I am thankful that everything happened the way it did.
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