Onesie Fest 2012

Last week I flew to LA for an extended weekend visit with my BFF from High School. She just had a baby girl about 7 weeks ago, and I wanted to bring a gift that was both helpful and beautiful. As I was mulling this idea over, I remembered Pinterest – why else would you have a virtual cork board full of cool stuff if not for exactly this kinda thing??? So, I ventured over to my “Kid Stuff” section and poked around, but I kept coming back to the photo of the baby in a onesie with the cat-eye glasses on it…

I went out and purchased a bunch of onesies in different sizes – a 3-pack in each of 3-6 mos, 6-9 mos, 12 mos, and 18 mos – so that the baby would have onesies to wear now and for the coming year. I washed them, dug out my Avery T-shirt Transfers, and fired up Photoshop. Then I started thinking of all the other things I might put on them…

The first “set” (having one onesie of each size) I came up with revolves around Audrey Hepburn. You see, many moons ago, we had a sleepover at my friend’s house and she shared one of her favourite movies, “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”, with me. Several years later, I also spent the better part of a month visiting my friend whilst she was living in Paris, so this seemed like a very appropriate girlie theme – without being too “pink and princessy”, if you will.

I pinched the images off of a Google image search, though I edited / tweaked them to fit together a bit better than they originally did. I also added the text to the last image… But I didn’t stop there. I decided the second set of onesies should remind her of other happy times…

I won’t go into great detail about the personal significance of these images. Suffice to say, they should invoke some happy memories of her parents, her partner, and her passion.

And finally, the third set – because things always happen in threes. 😉 Well, this set all began with the cat-eye glasses. Which reminded me of my friend’s fascination with the 50s/60s… And retro dance parties… And the fact that she works on “Mad Men”…

First, I recreated the glasses onesie I had admired on Pinterest. Then I found (again, via Google search) a great “mock movie poster” which uses a Mad Men avatar of Audrey (can you believe it?!) And then finally, I modified some of the well know Mad Men advertising to suit the baby at hand. My personal favourite is the falling teddy bear (it’s funny what your brain comes up with in the deep, dark hours of no sleep).

And finally, here are a couple of snaps of the wildly adorable baby actually wearing the smallest of her onesies. Tip of the hat to her daddy for suggesting the framing for the second one. 😉

Can I say again just how much I lovelovelove Avery T-Shirt transfers (for dark fabrics) and Photoshop Elements 9 !?!?! LOVE! And sweet, new, wonderful babies (although, it became crystal clear that I am SO done with having any more of my own). So, yeah. Didn’t I tell you they were kick-ass? 😉 Anyhow. Next time you’re needing a clever and meaningful baby gift, maybe you’ll think about making your own. Of course, you could just ask me to make some for you… 🙂