This past year, I’ve been working on a special book documenting Luna’s first year of life. When we had Luna, everyone kept on telling us to take a lot of photos as the year will go by really fast. Well, we did and we took A LOT! In this digital age, I was a little concerned that the photos we were taking were just getting lost in our computer. I grew up (Which I’m sure all of you did too) where we had tons of albums at home documenting our life. I think that’s been non existant lately as our computer has become our photo album. But I don’t find the satisfaction looking through photos on my monitor screen – I feel less attached to the photos I am looking at. It’s just not the same. I want to be able to hold a book, go through the pages, feel the paper… it’s more intimate and feels more special.

So I came up with this idea and jumped right on it the first month Luna was born. It’s a 276 page book with different chapters for every month of her life. Here’s a little write up taken from the book:

To my daughter Luna,

I made this book, for you, to document your first year of life. Whenever you were having your afternoon naps or dreaming away in the evening in your cozy room I would be working on this book – creating something special for you to have. For such a little person, you sure have taught me so much about patience, love and to see the world with fresh eyes. When we first laid our eyes on each other when you were born, it was as if you knew who I was already and I felt the same. The love that I feel towards you is so powerful that I always have a hard time describing what it feel like. This book shows how much you have impacted our lives and how much love you have brought into our lives too. I hope that when you grow up and look at this book, it will be a nice reminder of all the special moments we have shared with you during your wonderful first year of life. All the milestones you had accomplished, your first frustrations, first solids, first rollovers, first vacation, first birthday… everything you learned and discovered, we were always there beside you, watching you discover your world and grow to become such a beautiful little girl. We are so proud of you, our dear daughter and thank you for coming to this world to be part of our lives.

Love, Mommy

I plan to do one for every year of her life (crossing my fingers), kind of like an encyclopedia with different volumes. It’s really not that much work. I just take a few hours per month working on a few pages. Looking through this book now after a year has past, I can’t help but get a bit emotional as it’s really been such a special year. We now look forward to what year 2 will bring!

If you haven’t noticed yet, I have an obsession with wrapping and packaging things. I will make all the effort to wrap a loaf of homemade bread, fresh cookies, herbs etc… to give to friends. I also love the feel of paper and fabric together. I guess it’s the smoothness of the paper and the raw texture of a fabric that always seems to work together nicely.

This little present was a wooden alphabet ‘A’ train for little Avenir. The fabric and paper gives a homey feel while bakers twine wraps the preciousness inside and seals it with love.

Recently, we went to my friend Janice’s birthday party for her little boy Kai who turned 1. The party was filled with little packages of popcorn for everyone to help themselves with, party favours in blue packages filled with their favourite teas, water bottles with custom labels, cupcakes and other yummy treats. I like how everything was cute and on-theme. It was lovely how it all came together. With a little imagination, it’s not really that hard to do. It’s mostly finding readymade packaging and re-imagining it by dressing it up with some ink jet stickers and nice simple designs. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Janice is a professional graphic designer (we both worked together at Kevin Louis Design before we went on mat leave). Kids birthday parties are a fun way to make and experiment with DIY projects. And, it’s also an excuse to treat yourself with all the sweets you wished you could eat everyday. Happy Birthday Kai! Thank your mom for a lovely party.

Photographs taken by Jason & Lena from Jaylena Photography.