by Whitney
Look at my son. He is such a baby supermodel! Look at him!
Although I am usually opposed to studio photography, there is something about it that’s easy to look at. I guess that’s why our parents took us to Kmart for portraits all those years.
Your assignment: Take advantage of the free 8×10 portrait offered by the Picture People company on their website. Their style of photography is a step up from the Kmart photos we grew up with. Cheesy or adorable - there is a fine line. And when it comes to your own baby, I’m guessing you’ll side with “adorable”. These Picture People stores are found in malls (high class, I know) and you’ll have to use their store locator to find out if this is a feasible spur of the moment outing.
My professional advice (and yes, I am actually qualified to give this) is to have your baby wear something timeless such as a solid colored onesie and jeans or overalls. The more skin you show, the better. Bare feet and bare arms make baby photography even more irresistable. Jeans + Bare Feet = One Cute Picture. And don’t forget to take a couple of pictures with you in it, even if you think you have bad hair, are fat or unworthy. You are her mother, and you are beautiful. She will definitely want the photos later in life, when she’s done hating you.
Make a deal with yourself that you will not buy more of the pictures than the free one. You might be embarassed to leave the place with only your single enormous free picture, but that’s the only way we can keep this activity in the free/cheap category.
by Whitney
Over at MuchMoreThanAMom.com, Rylan’s mommy challenges us to finish this sentence and share with each other.
I’ll go first, based on an experience from last week:
Real moms wish their kid wasn’t sick so that they could go to daycare.
Real moms fear they can’t handle ten hours at home with their sick kid.
by Whitney
Most of us are not nearly as crafty as PunkyMoms.com founder Winter Wilsey, but when you see her masterpiece, you’ll sure wish you were. Whether your design sensibilities are mid-century modern, European vintagey, or sub-continent Bohemian, you’ll have to agree with her:
Unless you are a Winnie the Pooh or Disney enthusiast, you are pretty much screwed once you have a kid, as far as acquiring anything for your child to match your punk rock lifestyle. Welcome to your newly decorated home, soon to be littered with non-recyclable, neon red and blue plastic crap. As new punky parents we are forced into a different kind of consumer’s world, one which makes us believe we must purchase a multitude of brand new “eyesores” in order to make our children happy.
Winter cleaned up this car, painted it black, and embellished with fabrics that reflect her own personal style. Rock on!
At the playground I frequent the most, there are at least five of these Little Tikes cozy coupes in their original form circulating amongst the 12-24 month old set, and on Craig’s List they run from about $5 to $25.
I do have a hot glue gun…
Read Winter’s tutorial here >
by Heather
My friend Linda turned me on to this idea and I really don’t know how I didn’t think of this myself… I came oh-so-close to it. This was me:
- Why does Holden cry when I need my keys for driving?
- How come the plastic keys just aren’t doing it?
- Gee, where can I get a set of really good fake keys?
- I need to throw away some of these keys that I don’t know what they open
And then like magic today, I learned that baby Amalia also loves keys and she is just as happy with her “fake set” of real keys from the hardware store (duh!). Since she is especially fond of the car keys, her folks got her some uncut (thus safer) car-style keys to round out the set. Genius.
Whitney has other good fakie fake ideas not involving a trip to the hardware store.
