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The intent of this blog is to form an interactive community where parents of dead babies can come together and swap information, stories, tears, memories and encouragement. This is designed to be a neutral place. We are not religious nor are we anti-religious. Come as you are. You can sign the guest book, add your baby(ies) to the baby name memory list, review books on infant death, add warnings about movies and books that contain a dead baby, add your blog to our directory or a number of other things. Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or would like to see something added to this blog. Rule One: be kind to each other. We're all in this together. We all suffer and miss our babies madly.

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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Scrapbooking Tips

I have started seriously thinking about how I am going to scrapbook my son's memories. I don't have any photos of him but have some other things. Has anyone blogged about their own scrapbooking activies? Please share the link or just leave a comment with ideas you might have of how we can scrapbook our precious memories. Any free online resources you've found?

Elaine
http://www.wavesoverstones.blogspot.com/

9 comments:

Priscilla said...

I never scrapbooked our first son's memories, as I didn't have any pictures either. However, I do have a special wooden memory box that we bought specifically for him. We have all of the cards we received, the clothes that he wore, hospital bands, etc. in there. I also framed a picture that reminds us of him, as well as dried some flowers that we received after we lost him. All of that sits on a floating shelf. I suppose if you have any items such as that, you could make scrapbooking pages specifically for each item. If they are larger items that would not fit in the scrapbook, you could take an artistic photograph of that item, then scrapbook that. You could also continue on in the scrapbook with current items as things stick out that remind you of him.

I'm interested in hearing what others have to say, as I would LOVE to create a special scrapbook for our Jacob!

Elaine said...

this might sound like a dumb question but how do you press or dry flowers? I know with roses I just hang them upside down until they're hard but then they're still in that rose shape...how do you press them flat without crinkling them?

Holly said...

When I pressed flowers for school I put the flower in between 2 pieces of wax paper and put it in a heavy book and left it like that until it was dried and firmly pressed.

I've made 2 scrapbooks. I've been meaning to either photograph or video them to share on my blog but haven't done it yet. I know several people asked me to share for ideas.

Priscilla said...

All the flowers I have dried were just hung upside down. We have them in little seagrass baskets. That's a good idea about drying individual flowers for scrapbooking. I might have to do that!

Holly, I would love to see pictures of your scrapbook pages. :)

Heather said...

I love to scrapbook. I have a scrapbook for my son starting when I was pregnant with him and continuing on. I have it hosted online at my scrapbook blog http://alteredbtwest.blogspot.com (or a direct link to just his pages: http://alteredbywest.blogspot.com/search/label/Logan%27s%20Scrapbook) where you can see how I did a few pages with out pictures. I scarpbooked using his hand print, his ultrasound pictures, a picture of me holding a blanket that a nice woman sent me in the mail after finding my blog, I did a page of the first time I heard his hearbeat, about how I felt (the exhaustion) during his pregnancy, a page for when and how we picked out names, and a few others that I haven't been able to blog about yet. I have lots of plans for new layouts, including his "birth story", the Memorial Tree we planted, I'm planning a page about my blog and how I learned to cope with loosing him, about his one year anniversary, the flowers someone anonomously planted at the base of his tree, a page about the Alpaca Teddy Bear we used to place his urn in (including pictures of the bear and my daughter holding the bear)... New things come up all the time. Some other ideas would be to scrap the hospital bracelet, a lock of hair, any tags or name plates or other identifying pieces, cards, dried flowers, pictures, pictures of his/her name (like in the sand or on rocks), pictures of special jewelery or blankets or clothing, you could cut a small piece of fabric from a onesie or nighty or blanket they wore, the wash cloth the were bathed with, their hat (or pictures of these things if you wish not to cut them up), special poems or song lyrics, written special memories like the baptism or memorial service or funeral or something nice someone did or said in your childs honor. You can scrapbook the milestone dates (due date, 1st birthday, anniversary date, first holiday) and about how you felt, what you did or would have done. If your child has a special spot in your home, you can photograph and then talk about the location (why you chose it, what's there, etc). You can add a letter that you wrote to your child. There are limitless possibilities. You don't have to have a layout that revolves around a photo. I have several layouts (including ones in family scrapbooks, and my daughters scrapbook) that are pages with just words. You can do a search online for scrapbook layouts (there are many blogs) to get ideas. Don't be affraid to "steal" (aka scraplift) a layout that you like. I like to visit http://www.scrapjazz.com and look at their galleries.

Heather said...

There are also lots of Facebook groups for stillborn (etc) children and a lot of them have scrapbook pages. There used to be one for just scrapbooks about dead babies, but I can't seem to locate it.

Heather said...

One last thing (I swear) if you have a blog or a site where you have scrapbook layouts of your child(rens) that you would like to share, or know of a site like that, please post their links here.

Elaine said...

what I have decided to do is to make a scrapbook of all of the photos I've received of Blaine's name...done by wonderful BLM's!! And then I'm going to do a 12 x 12 page of his ultrasound photo and some other keepsakes and frame that one. Will be working on it over the next couple of weeks and will post it to show you once I'm done...thanks for all of the great ideas!!

Melissa said...

I did a post about how I am doing my daughter's memory book on my blog here http://amazingmikaylagrace.blogspot.com/2010/08/scrapbooking-mikaylas-life.html. I've also listed some of the resources I found.