our news
I mentioned we had some news that we shared with our friends in our new years card (and a special thank you to our patient friends and family who actually sat down and de-coded the card!). We wanted to share our big news with my parents and our children Bee and C on Christmas morning, so we decided to tell everyone all at once.
I offered to help my parents with their Christmas card this year and decided to do a Family Tree showing how our family is growing (there were 3 new babies in 2009). My parents have six children (I'm the fourth) and between my siblings and I there are 14 grandchildren. While I had everyone together this summer for our annual family reunion, I asked each person to stand against a wall so I could take their photo (mug shot style, with a sideways profile..). Later I traced the photos in Illustrator to make silhouettes of each person in our family. The result was a family tree chart that we printed on 10x14 sheets of paper and folded in fours and mailed out as Christmas cards.
For a gift to my parents I printed a large poster size version, framed it in a simple black frame, and wrapped it up for them to open Christmas morning. My mom unwrapped the gift with Bee and C sitting next to her. Immediately Bee and C wanted to know where they were in the chart, so my mom pointed to their silhouettes. And that's when she realized that this chart had a new addition (fourth row).
A new little baby for our family. It was perfect. My mom screamed, and the children literally jumped for joy (they've been asking for a baby for over a year now). It might be the happiest Christmas morning ever.
03.3.2010
Reader Comments (114)
Congratulations, Brooke!
I love the silhouette family tree!
Oh Congratulations! This is so clever. And though the image was small, I think we're due around the same time. Here's hoping for some fab pregnancy and newborn posts!
congratulations! and what a great way to share the news with family!
beautifull! felicidades!
Congratulations Brooke! That is exciting news! And what a fun way to tell the family.
congratulations!!!!! what a great christmas gift!! :)
I love this idea! Congratulations!!!
Congratulations, Brooke! Love the poster and would love to see an Illustrator silhouette tutorial in the future :)
Happiest indeed. Honestly, I couldn't stop grinning for hours.
This is the best idea to comunicate those beautiful news I've ever seen. And of course a fantastic Christmas card. Congratulations!!
I love how every girl is a ponytail person! I've been trying to think of a cute way to make a family tree with little oval photos, but now photos have been around long enough to go back seven generations--so that's a lot of clutter. And a lot of scrapbooking inspiration is too tacky for my taste. I saw one cute family tree with tiny clam shells tied on ribbons to a sea fan framed in a shadow box, and the shells had names written on them, but I don't think photos would work on that. Let me know if you have any ideas!
So sweet! And such a nice way for everyone to remember the moment. Congratulations! xo
Adorable!
congratulations! how very clever...
What fun! Congratulations!
I love everything about this! What a great Christmas card and what a wonderful way to make an announcement. Hurray!!
Beautiful:) Congratulations. That is such wonderful news:)
what a brilliant way to share the happy news! congratulations to you and your family!!
So much fun! The poster looks amazing and I'm so excited for your happy news. Yay!!
Congratulations! What a great way to break the news!