Custom Project Life kit inspiration: Woodland Nursery theme
Being new parents, we understand that babies get a lot of great stuff from friends and family, and don’t necessarily need a ton for Christmas. So when we decided to do a Secret Santa gift exchange for the babies in our baby group (comprised of five other couples that we met through prenatal yoga), we knew we wanted to make something more ‘out of the box’ for whomever we drew.
Luckily, we picked baby Lennyx, a wonderful little girl whose mom has recently gotten into Project Life after Will and I taped a Facebook Live video as a contest entry to win a year of PL from Becky Higgins. (I’ve included this video at the end of this post for those who might have missed it.)
I wanted to make Lennyx something that would last longer than clothes or a toy, and so I jumped on Creative Market, got a couple design elements that matched her woodland-themed nursery (full list of these elements at the end of the post), and got to work in Illustrator creating a suite of cards for her Project Life album.
I had so much fun creating this kit and was extremely pleased with the final result. I wrapped an old PL box with a custom cover, using Epson adhesive paper to make it extra special. I couldn’t wait to give it to Lennyx so I could share it with you here, and I even bumped up the exchange date so that I could give her the gift earlier than planned!
The inside of the box had a note from Harlow, including this little poem I wrote during a nighttime feed. Apparently the best ideas come while nursing!
This gift is special, it’s made from the heart.
It’s one of a kind; you can’t “add it to your cart.”It’s not a hat or a mitten, sock or a shoe.
You can’t outgrow it, it was made especially for you.Now go ahead and take a look.
Pretty soon your mom will have these all in your book!
I came up with the concept of this present from my own experience with Harlow’s Project 365 album. I had created a couple custom cards with her name and birthdate, which are some of my favourite cards in her album. I wanted Lennyx’s mom to have the same experience and love for the cards in her album, so I created a complete kit with 50 4X3 cards and 20 4X6 cards, including both decorative and journaling cards.
Lennyx has also had some trips to SickKids hospital in Toronto, and so I made a couple cards especially for those days, because although it’s hard to experience, it’s still a part of her story.
After all was said and done, I couldn’t have been happier with the end result. I opted to send the cards to a local print shop for the quality I just couldn’t get at home, but cut them out at home by myself. I then rounded the corners of the cards to match the PL kits her mom had already purchased for her book, and loaded them into her special box.
I love that each and every card was made especially for Lennyx. It made me so happy to see her mom open the present and will make me even happier to see her use the cards in the book that will one day be passed down for baby Lennyx to enjoy.
Elements used from Creative Market are: Petal Brush Font; Watercolour Forest Animals; Confetti Hand Drawn Patterns; Watercolour Wreath Creator; Floral Alphabet; Bellwethers Font.
