If you’ve ever had the privilege of changing the diaper of a baby boy, you might be confused by the subject of this post. To be clear, we’re not discussing those kinds of baby boy sprinkle mishaps.     

Actually, if this isn’t your first baby, you probably have a nice assortment of clothing and gear from your previous one or two. Maybe you’re picking out all your baby gear needs on your own. And maybe the idea of having a huge party when you’re really pregnant isn’t sitting well with you. If any of these apply, you might be thinking about a baby sprinkle shower instead of the usual baby shower. 

Quick Links

• What is a baby sprinkle?
• Baby sprinkle gift ideas
• Baby sprinkle games 
• Baby sprinkle ideas
• Capture memories with plenty of photographs
• Baby sprinkle invitations
• Creating personalized baby sprinkle invitations and baby shower invites with Motif

What is a baby sprinkle?

A baby sprinkle is basically an abbreviated baby shower. It still involves guests, gifts, food, and refreshments, but they’re in much smaller amounts than your typical shower. They’re gaining in popularity nationwide so don’t be surprised if you find a baby sprinkle party invitation in your mailbox soon. 

Baby sprinkle gift ideas

Baby sprinkle gifts tend to be smaller in value and often more practical. Items like wipes, diapers, bibs, and other popular toiletries make great gifts. Bringing a gift for the older sibling is a great way to make everyone feel appreciated. Diapers in general are never a bad idea to those with newborns. Parents will always be needing to eat between feedings, changings, and stealing moments of rest when possible, so a gift of some home cooked meals or food delivery service is also a great practical gift idea.  

Baby sprinkle games

With the first hour or so of your sprinkle going to chatting, eating, and opening a few gifts, games can easily fill the remaining time. Some popular games to try include guessing the celebrity baby from photographs, blindfolded diaper changing, playdoh baby making station, and pin the pacifier on the baby.

If you’re not a big game person but want something that can happen throughout the gathering, try games like “Don’t Say Baby.” Whoever goes the longest without saying “Baby” wins the prize. Have guests fill out cards that include parenting advice for the expecting parents. Even if they have one already, they might need advice on managing two or more. 

Baby sprinkle ideas

Choosing a theme for your baby sparkle shower might be as easy as a color. Baby girl sprinkle ideas in anything pink will do the trick. Baby boy sprinkle ideas in baby blue will certainly do. Whatever your color may be, baby sprinkle theme ideas can also be based on animals, or nursery rhymes, food, or even floral. One could even go with a cloud theme to match the “sprinkle” event. Decorations with rainbows and clouds are popular as are flowers and raindrops. 

Consider a hired venue if you’d rather not handle the cleanup or food and beverages. Outdoor events can be fun if the weather cooperates or a personal at home setting may all be considered.

Capture memories with plenty of photographs

Photographs, besides the sprinkle gifts and empty beverage containers, will be the one thing that lets you remember the fun event. So be sure there’s someone designated to take photos of your baby sprinkle. If not just one person, remind everyone to snap liberally and then create a shared folder for everyone to contribute to. Any one of them could be used to create a personalized thank you card. Companies like Motif make it easy. Putting them a good assortment together in a photo book makes a great piece to revisit the moment whenever you feel like it. 

Baby sprinkle invitations

Instead of buying invitations from a store, use any photo of your own like a pregnancy shot to create an invite for the event. You’d be surprised how easy it is. Your guests will be amazed at how customized you were able to make them. They might even save them. 

Creating personalized baby sprinkle invitations and baby shower invites with Motif

Using your very own photos of the family to be or even any of the baby bump photos you’ve taken, creating personalized invitations is easy. Download the free Motif app to your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. Motif works within Apple Photos so there’s no real need to upload photos unless of course you’re getting them from a friend or family. You can try Motif for free. Make as many projects as you like to see how fun it can be. Buy what you like. 

On your Mac laptop or desktop, open Photos and select the photo or memory you’d like to create your sprinkle/shower invite with. Right-click or in the File menu select Create, then Card, and then Motif. 

On your iPhone/iPad, simply open the Motif app and then select New in the upper right corner, then choose the product Card.  

Motif then magically places your selected photo into your card format. Add whatever text you’d like including time and date of the event. You’ll be surprised how easy it is.  

Bring your best photos to life with Motif.

Experience how easy creating personalized photo projects is with Motif. Our photo project app seamlessly works with Apple Photos in macOS and iOS. We do all the complicated stuff leaving the fun creative freedom to you.

The post Baby Sprinkle Shower Ideas appeared first on The Motif Blog.

Personalized photo books are growing in popularity, in part because they’re getting easier and easier to make with great technology, and also because they make a perfect gift for every occasion. If you’re thinking about making a custom photo book for the whole family but need ideas to get started, we’ve got you covered! Here are 10 of our favorites:

1. Family baby book

How many times have you had someone ask which parent you look more like, or whether your son looks more like his father or mother? Family baby books are a great way to look back at each family member’s beginning while beautifully encapsulating those squishy thighs and firsts. There are two ways we love to do this: chronologically and comparatively.

To make a chronological book, dedicate a spread or two to each member of your family. Organize photos of each family member into their dedicated page spreads and organize each member’s pages in chronological birth order, starting from oldest to youngest or vice versa.

A comparative book is a perfect way to figure out who got mom’s eyes or grandpa’s nose—you get the idea. We love the concept of organizing these by stages. So, for example, you might start at “birth” and include everyone’s birth photo in the same spread, using text tools to label names, locations, and birth dates. You could then move into six-month baby photos, first steps (with the date and each person’s age), first birthday, high school graduation, and on and on.

2. Your family in history

We keep family history alive through stories, but photos are a great way to give those stories new meaning. Regale your family’s tale through a custom photo book that details your family’s unique history. Perhaps your great grandparents came to the U.S. from abroad and built a business. Your grandparent was born across the country, graduated college and married their college sweetheart…

Every person in your family has a story and their stories, when combined, build a unique tapestry of personal history. One of our all-time favorite photo book ideas is to tell it through photos and keep the stories alive for generations to come.

3. Family fairytale

Bedtime stories are a time-honored tradition, and what better fairytale than one creatively crafted just for your kids? Tell your story through photos, or you could even take photos of your children to use in your photo book, drafting a story featuring them.

Motif makes it easy to blend text and photos into a dream-worthy fairytale storybook created just for your family.

4. Through the seasons

If you plan to create photo books regularly, consider a family photo book that organizes the year by seasons, rather than months. Motif’s themes make it easy to give your book cohesiveness, while the individual seasonal photos will create natural “chapters” of your year in seasons.

5.  Around the world

If you’re a family that loves to travel, consider creating a book that consolidates photos from all your best adventures. You could create a chapter for each trip, showcasing the trip destination and dates in text, complementing the text with your all-time favorite family photo of each trip.

6. Family yearbook

Remember the yearbooks you’d get at the end of each school year? Consider doing the same for your family. This is a great way to keep all your favorite memories fresh and organized, while giving your photos use and purpose. You could organize your photos by month, family member, or even memorable moments. Consider doing a collage of sorts at the end, just like your old yearbooks did.

Through Motif you can even title your books on the spine, making it easy to find the “2020 family yearbook”, and lining them all up on the shelf makes a great focal point for a bookcase or open shelving unit.

7. Heirloom cookbook

Perhaps your family has a series of recipes that bring special meaning to certain holidays or celebrations. Carry those traditions through the years by creating a custom family cookbook that you can pass on to future generations. Use the text feature to enter the recipes and pair them with a photo of the recipe on each page. You can even include anecdotes about the recipe’s origin or meaning, giving an extra personal touch to each special inclusion.

8. A year at a time

If you’re creating a family photo book that encompasses long periods of time, consider creating a “year-at-a-time” book. Section your book off by years and organize photos by year using Motif’s professionally created layouts. You can caption special moments or personal anecdotes where appropriate. These make beautiful coffee table books and will no doubt be a favorite from which to tell family stories for years to come.

9. Deck your halls

Holidays are filled with traditions and memories and can, in themselves, fill entire photo books. Show those traditions through photos in a special photo book dedicated to your family’s holidays. Consider doing a two-page spread for news years to start your book, then Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and so on. Make sure to include some of your family-specific celebrations, too, such as birthdays or dance recitals.

10. The story of us

If you’re married or have a personal love story, consider telling it through a custom story photo book. If you have children, they’ll undoubtedly love hearing it over and over, and your loved one will be touched by your personal recounting of the moments that made you fall in love. In the later chapters you can tell the stories of your children and their early moments and proceed to turn your love story into a story of your family’s love and bond.

The post Ten Photo Book Ideas for the Whole Family appeared first on The Motif Blog.

With Mother’s Day is just around the corner, now is the perfect time to start planning how to celebrate that special mom in your life. If you’re searching for the perfect gift to honor her, we have you covered: Capture the beauty of motherhood with a beautiful custom photo book she’ll love forever. Need a little help getting started? Take a look at a few of our favorite ideas.

For the mother of a new baby: The beauty of new motherhood

There are few things cuter than all those little fingers, toes, and firsts, and a custom photo book is a perfect way to capture those moments. Creating a book dedicated to baby’s first year is a time-honored tradition, and moms are known for snapping countless photos of their babies to catch every special new experience. But too often, there’s someone missing from those photos: mom!

Get behind the lens and capture photos of Mom being Mom. Include some of those beautiful pre-baby maternity shots. Her smile as she tickles that belly. Her peek-a-boo face while she plays with her little one. Her sleeping with baby after a long night. She’ll love seeing herself through your eyes—a beautiful mother dedicated to what she loves most in this world.

For the mother of young kids: The beauty of growing together

While her days are filled with endless snuggles, giggles, and love, they’re also filled with less glamorous activities like comforting little ones, chauffeuring the kids to their activities, cleaning up…you get the idea. Glamorous or not, each of those tasks is done with love—and that in itself is beautiful.

Outline the defining moments of the year on paper, then find (or take) photos to match. Her celebrating your son’s goal at the start of soccer season. The beautiful dinner she prepared for Thanksgiving with an accompanying photo of her spending the day with family.

Remember to include the regular and every day with those big events—baking cookies with the kids or serving up fresh-made pancakes, the time you secretly busted her for dancing with the mop, sleeping peacefully at 8 p.m. after another busy day, handing out snacks to the team after a game… Catch the ordinary made beautiful.

For your own mother: The beauty of motherhood through the years

Moms are moms forever—even after their children grow up and leave the nest, their job isn’t done. Your mother still checks in with you, answers your questions, and listens to your problems. She’s the one who comes in to watch the kids overnight so you and your spouse can get away for some just-the-two-of-you time. Honor your life with your mom in a special photo book that brings the past and present together.

For many of our moms, digital photography was not yet a thing when we were growing up, so photos are fewer in number. Bring those print photos into the digital world, and polish them with a high-quality binding and gorgeous Motif presentation, then share the digital versions with her. It’s the perfect way to show your mom how beautiful she is and how grateful you are for all the years she’s spent taking care of you.

Include the moments you remember best, and take the time to write a little bit about those memories in your book. Why was that birthday party your favorite? How special did you feel when she took a day off to go on a picnic in the park with you? Every moment you retell will give new life to memories that are undoubtedly precious for her, too.

Celebrate the precious stages of motherhood and the beautiful mothers in your life with a priceless keepsake she’ll treasure for years to come. Need help getting started? Check out our guide to creating amazing photo books.

The post Capture the Beauty of Motherhood for Mother’s Day appeared first on The Motif Blog.