Family Photo Frames (Guest Post from Plain Vanilla Mom)

I am so happy to be introducing Jen, from Plain Vanilla Mom, as my guest post for today! Jen is a mom after my own heart...we share the love of baking, snapping pictures, searching for creative ways to play with our little ones, and even the love of dance. After seeing some of the creative ideas featured on Plain Vanilla Mom, like her Sensory Bag for Baby and Bird Seed Feeders, I was so excited when Jen was willing to share a photo idea that would be perfect for Grady.  (Many of her posts also had my mouth watering - enter Chocolate Mint Bundt Cake and Banana Cupcakes!!!) Be sure to stop by Plain Vanilla Mom on Facebook after checking out these cute family photo frames that will help your kiddos connect faces with names in no time!

Hi there! I'm Jen from Plain Vanilla Mom, and I am so excited to be guest posting here at Familglia & Seoul! I just love Gina's blog.  I adore the way she is using it as a diary for her son. What a fantastic keepsake :) How much fun will he have looking back over her blog in years to come!! 

I was so flattered when Gina asked me to do a guest post for her. I didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted to share.  I tried a project with the babes not that long ago that kinda failed. Largely because he's just about 8 months old and into chewing and drooling on EVERYTHING and this turned out to be no different. It pretty much did the project in. The idea was a good one though, and (in my humble opinion) worthy of sharing.  I thought perhaps that for a child of Grady's age it would be perfect fit. I fully intend to try this again when our little guy is older but in the meantime Grady...this one is for you :)

My littlest one loves to look at pictures!  Whenever he sees pictures of himself, or other family members he just smiles so big. It makes a mamas heart melt.  I have been putting together photo books for him since he was born and he loves to look at them (we will often use them for "story time") but as you can imagine, I am hesitant to let him handle them as the pages will be quickly & easily torn. I also hate that I can't let him handle them because I know babies learn through being able to touch and interact with various objects so I try my hardest not to put anything in front of him that I don't intend to let him touch.  So… my brilliant idea to solve this problem was to make some picture frames out of crafting foam that he could safely handle without tearing the pictures.  He could get up close and personal with them and what would be better than that! Well what would be better than that when you are eight months old is….wait for it… yes! putting them in your mouth!!  Of course, what was I thinking? I knew it would happen but I guess I was hopeful he would be so captivated by the pictures he would forget to chew them. It didn't take long for the drool to get on the pictures, and well… you can guess how that turned out. Grandma was looking pretty scary let me tell you.  I doubt very much Grady is in the mouthing stage any longer so for a toddler of his age this would be a perfectly fun project. Kids & babies love to look at people, especially faces, and even better, familiar faces. This is also a great project if you (like us) have family that live out of state and even though you don't see them often you want baby to learn who they are. 

Here's how I did it. 

I had some precut sticky back crafting foam that I had gotten from our local craft store. It was already in 4x6 pieces so a good chunk of work was already done for me.  To make the frame I grabbed two pieces of foam in the same color. One for the front and one for the back.  I used a crafting knife to cut a square out of one of the pieces to the size of whatever part of my picture I wanted to show through. Then I would stick the picture, face up on the piece of foam that was to be the back of the frame. Lastly, adhere the "frame" piece over the top of that.  

I did mine in a bit of a hurry one day when the babycakes was napping because I wanted him to be able to play with them when he got up. If you were doing these to last, you could take your time and make them look quite nice. If I had a child that was old enough to decorate the frames I would get some stickers and other embellishments and let them go to town. To enhance it a bit I would also write the names of the family members on the front of the frames. That would be a great way to start with a little name & letter recognition.  

I fully intend to try this project again when the the babe is a bit older and add in the aforementioned elements. In the meantime, I hope perhaps it will be a fun project for Grady and some inspiration for you!

I blog over at Plain Vanilla Mom. I am a mom of four,  ages 11, 9, 7 & 8 months. The 11 & 9 year old are actually my "bonus kids" but we all have the same amount of fun! You can read about all of our goings on over at Plain Vanilla Mom. I post a lot about what we are doing with the babes because, well lets face it, he's my captive audience while everyone else in the family is off at school or work. My personal hobbies fall into two categories…baking & photography and you will find a bit of both on the blog as well. I'd love to have you stop by and say hi! Be sure to leave a comment, I love to chat and will happily answer back.