A record of Weekly Baby Photo Project Continues

Clara’s first birthday last Saturday made for a natural conclusion to 52 weeks of fabric-filled photo-y goodness (click here to see ’em larger).

But we are going to keep going. Kind of. Before we move on to that though, let us talk about the last photo-filled year.

We are simply as surprised as anyone that we managed to maintain our weekly ritual fifty-two times in a row. In fact, today is the first Friday in 12 months that we have not busted out the camera, a yard of discount fabric, and a white-onesied Clara, and then used Photoshop to add the week number to her onesie after the fact. It is kinda sad in a way. But simply looking at all of the photos that we captured of our growing bean cheers us up fairly swiftly. And it truly surprised and flattered us to hear from many of you who were doing your own version of the project with fabric and photoshop too. The craziest thing about our weekly photo session is that our project in fact got featured in a book about photographing kids: Mamarazzi, by Stacy Wasmuth. Yeah, we are kind of in shock. And the grandparents went freaking crazy (“our grandbaby is famous!”).

And of course there were all of the sentimental items that the project spawned around here – like the bound photos books that we have ordered for ourselves and the grandparents (more on those when they arrive), the photo display that we created at Clara’s party…

… and the items that Sherry sewed out of the leftover fabric – like her birthday banner and quilt:

For any of you who have considering starting (or are in the midst of) a similar project of your own, we thought it might be helpful to toss up this link back to the original “making of” post for a look at how we took and edited the pictures. Though we should add one piece of advice that did not become clear to us until lately: your baby will not be a motionless blob forever!

In the early weeks many of you said “I cannot wait to see what you do once she starts moving around!” At the time we wondered how hard it could be to keep the bean on her back. Heck our biggest challenge was getting her to move sufficient to make the picture somewhat interesting in the early days (“oooh, that burp looked like a smile!”). But as you can see from many of our recent pictures, of course it was harder than we originally thought. Once those rolling / crawling / pulling up skills kicked in, let us simply say that Clara had little interest in waiting patiently for me to white balance. These last few photo sessions could be subtitled as “how many parents and objects are needed to block a baby from crawling off a daybed while singing and waving your arms around frantically?” The answer: a lot.

We did find that giving her an object to hold (aka: to distract her) helped make her less wiggly – like the carrot in her Easter photo (week #49). So part of us wished we had included an object from the beginning – even if for the first few weeks it simply laid by her side. Plus, if we had used the same object throughout there would be a clearer reference for scale.

The only object that was consistent in our pics was her onesie, but that was not the clearest way to show off her growth. In fact, it nearly looked like she got smaller when we switched from a (tight at the time) 0-3 month size to a (loose at the time) 6 month one for her 14 week picture.

Because of that hiccup we in fact squeezed her into that some 6 month onesie for the rest of the project (do not worry, it stretched sufficient that she was plenty comfortable). The irony is that she’s such a tall glass of water that some 18-24 month pants are too short for her, but miraculously the onesie simply stretched to fit her the whole time.

So even though there are a few things we might’ve done differently (someone suggested starting her in a 12 month onesie from the beginning so we could watch her gradually fill it out), we have no regrets. We are simply turning those lessons learned into “adjustments” for the next year. So without further ado, here is the beginning of year #2.

We were truly excited to use the fabric that we designed on Spoonflower for this shot. As for what is distinct, allow me to point out the obvious (or perhaps not-so-obvious):

• Her onesie says “months.” Since her week-to-week changes became more subtle as she grew, we figured this would still do justice to her developments over year two (while also making it a more manageable project for mom and dad).
• She’s sitting. Rather than fighting her to stay on her back, we are embracing her desire to move and be upright. We figure this also gives us the flexibility to capture a crawling, standing, or even walking picture down the road.
• She’s wearing a skirt. In addition to her pose, we are gonna be less strict about her wardrobe this year too. As long as there is something white on top to photoshop the week month onto – it flies. Since we had lively doing special things like a Halloween costume (week #24) and a Santa hat (week #32) we thought it might be lively to mix things up.
• She’s on 2 yards of fabric. One yard of fabric would not cut it for this new sitting set-up. But since we are only taking 12 pictures (times 2 yards = approx 24 yards of fabric), we are still buying half as much as we did for the last 52 weeks this year. Happily we snag nearly all of our fabric on clearance or with 50% off coupons from places like Hancock or JoAnn. And sometimes we use other backdrops that we already have on hand (we like to work in random duvets and towels and shower curtains that we have too since it keeps the budget down when we do not feel like springing for new fabric).

So that is the new plan. We are excited to continue the project in some form, while letting the first year stand alone as a complete and wrapped up set of pictures. We’d hate to “ruin” what we began by trying to keep weeklies going and then abruptly fall of the wagon somewhere randomly around week 71 or something. Plus, if taking these sitting pictures turns out to be easier, perhaps baby #2 will get this treatment from the start (or an entirely new photo project concept – who knows).

And yes that is green painter’s tape holding the fabric in place. Would you expect anything less from us?

Psst- We announced this week’s giveaway winner. Click here to see if it is you.