My son just turned one month old and I new I wanted a different kind of monthly photo from what I did with my first son. He's already going to get all of his hand-me-downs, I can at least give him an original monthly photo. So, I headed to pinterest to get some inspiration and found this adorable idea. It's a blanket you can buy the monthly milestone blanket for $33 at Etsy here. But, I thought, "I can definitely make that for waaaaaaaay cheaper.", and set about planning how to make that happen.
I decided to use a canvas drop cloth as my "blanket". The smallest one I found at my local Harbor Freight was 4x12 so I had to cut it down a bit to make it a more appropriate size. It was easy to just use the fold lines and I wasn't too particular on measuring.
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After cutting it down I laid out my numbers. To make the numbers I was going to buy some number stencils but then couldn't find any. Instead, I used some chipboard numbers I found for $2.99 and traced around them. It was probably better anyway because it was way easier to see how everything laid out on my drop cloth. Once I figured out my spacing, I got a sharpie and traced around the edges of each number.
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After I had traced around each number, I grabbed some black acrylic paint and a paintbrush and filled in the tracings. Don't worry if it doesn't look perfect you won't be able to tell when you take the photo. For the "months" I ended up printing out the word using a microsoft powerpoint slide and then cut it out and stenciled around it and filled it in with black paint as well. Voila! Done!
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My son turned one month on Thanksgiving Day so I decided to put a few pumpkins next to him on the canvas and placed a pumpkin hat on his head. When I took the picture I stood on top of an ottoman and took it from a direct downward angle. My husband helped with keeping him somewhat happy and I just snapped away. Once I had a decent one I cropped and enhanced it and then ran it through my favorite photo editor Rookie Cam to lighten it up a bit. I intend to iron the fold lines out before the next photo I take because I didn't love having them in the photo. I also added a digital circle to the number one to indicate the month. You can do it digitally like me or you can find a picture frame and remove the glass and back to frame the number each month. The digital was easier for me since I was editing it anyway. I used the app "Phonto" to add the circle.
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I plan on doing other adorable things for the theme of each month similar to the idea that inspired this DIY. So, for about $15 (more than half the price to buy the inspiration) I ended up with this adorable milestone "blanket" and will get to give my son some really great photos to look back on. I hope it inspires you to make your own for either yourself or a friend. It would make a great gift!
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