by Carrie from Buzzings of a Queen Bee

Hi everyone!  I am here this month to solve one of life’s little mama heartbreaks.

You have this baby.  She is small and precious.  People give you small and precious clothes to put her in.  Then she gets bigger, and those clothes no longer fit.  You cry.  She cries.  (Probably not for the same reason,  but you get my point.)  What do you do?

If you are like me, you will end up with some little onesies, shirts, dresses or hats that are simply too sweet to give up, long after your baby has outgrown them.  The pieces that you just can’t donate to Goodwill or give to your sister for her kids.  It’s a piece of your baby’s baby-hood, you can’t give that up!

I hear you.  When I was pregnant with my daughter, I worked for a Major League Baseball team.  Working with that many dudes meant that I was bound to get some unconventional baby gifts, right?  Yep.  My favorite was this baseball jersey:

OK, I will admit she looked adorable in it.  For that one time we took her to a baseball game when it fit her.  But anyway. What to do with it after she outgrew it?  I was flipping though a magazine one day and I saw this cute idea:

Great idea, right?  It’s called a shadowbox, and you better believe I ran out and got one as soon as I figured out what it was!  Just head to any arts and crafts kind of store and they’re bound to know what you’re talking about.

So I grabbed some simple scrapbook paper to line the back of the box.  I did my best to fold my daughter’s shirt so you could see her name, and then I shoved a few straight pins in there.  Real technical, right?  I added a few more pins to mount the shirt to the back of the shadowbox and I was done!

This little shirt has become a unique piece of artwork in my four-year-old’s room.  I love being able to see and enjoy it, rather than stash it away in a box.  I’ve seen people do the same thing for baby booties, hats, tiny baptism dresses, or a combination of them all!

So there you go.  One less tearjerker moment for you.  One less precious item to tuck away.  And one more cute thing to hang in your growing baby’s room.  Everybody wins!

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More about our Booty Blogger:

When Carrie was a little girl, her dad dubbed her “The Queen Bee,” most likely because she was the firstborn in the family and was always planning a new project! Carrie is now a wife to Brent, mama to two little ones, Nina and Henry, and an amateur decorator and organizer, which means she still has an ever-evolving list of projects! Hmm…perhaps she still is the Queen Bee after all! Read more of Carrie’s decorating tips and tricks at her blog Buzzings of a Queen Bee.