new products

Thought you guys might like a sneak peek at two new additions we’ll soon be introducing at The Baby Gardner. Can’t let the ‘elephant’ out of the bag just yet. But when they’re ready, you’ll be able to find them here.

How many classic nursery rhymes can you name? I would bet Little Bo Peep and Little Boy Blue would come to mind. Check out our new vintage-inspired enamel boards with magnet buttons available at The Baby Gardner:

Little Bo Peep Enamel Board with 4 Magnet Buttons

Little Boy Blue Enamel Board with 4 Magnet Buttons

We’ve captured images from our favorite vintage story books to create these adorable boards with coordinating magnets. Ultrasound photos, footprints, birth announcements, photos of baby, mementos galore — now you have the perfect place to show them off in your vintage nursery. The best part? It’s super easy to change out your mementos whenever the urge strikes!

Do you scrap? If you don’t, you’re one of the few who’ve escaped the lure of racks and racks of gorgeous papers, punches in every shape imaginable, ribbons and brads and bindings galore! Stamps and buttons and scallop-edged scissors! Crop-a-diles and Crickets and chipboard and glitter! AAAHHH! Stop me!

For me, I tend to believe that scrapping was just an inevitable progression from a childhood spent collecting and trading stickers. (Come on, admit it. I know my fellow sticker collectors are out there!) I loved to collect stickers and trade them with my girlfriends. Lisa Frank rocked! But what the heck were we thinking? [Insert soap box here.] My friends and I would spend our entire allowance buying all these stickers, stick them in these cheesy laminated sticker books and then decide to trade. So in our infinite wisdom, we would ‘carefully’ (I use that term loosely) peel each one out as we traded back and forth and back and forth… and probably a little back and forth some more. We all ended up with these pitiful-looking creased and bent stickers that never really stuck very well. But oh how we loved it! That and playing the card game, War (but that’s another story).

So back to scrapping. Believe it or not, I’m really not technically a scrapper. It’s true. Scrappers would probably call me a wanna-be. I dearly love and frequent the scrapbook section of every craft store within a 60-mile radius — but I don’t build scrapbooks. I think it’s a lack of patience on my part. What I DO do (poor grammar) is craft the scrapbook covers themselves. And I LOVE it. You can find my most recent creations at The Baby Gardner.

For me, this is the perfect alternative to scrapping. I can drown myself in all the fun of scrapping without the long-term commitment of building an entire book. The best part is that I can infuse my love for vintage in the covers of these books as well. I love to use authentic vintage cards and findings. It makes each one truly one-of-a-kind. And I cannot express my love for decoupage enough. I should own stock in Mod Podge.

I guess you could say scrappers and I kind of have this unspoken bond. I leave the expertise of building the pages to them and they honor my craft by putting their work in the books I create. Can’t get any cooler than that.

I’m sure a lot of us are probably grappling with the personal decision we’ll make in the November election … which got me thinking … why not have a little of our own election fun? The result may not be world peace, but maybe we can spread a few smiles, right?

We’re looking for a new design to include in our exclusive line of birth announcements and shower invitations at The Baby Gardner, and we quickly realized the best way to choose a design was to ask you! Please take a moment and cast a vote for your favorite. The winning design will be developed and adopted into our line! Won’t it be cool to see your votes turn into a real product in our shop? Kinda fun!

Voting will end on Election Day, November 4th, 2008! Thanks for voting!

**VOTING IS CLOSED. THANKS FOR YOUR VOTES! **

First of all, I just want to thank everyone who participated in the NieNie auctions yesterday (some of which are still going on). Whether it was The Baby Gardner auction or one of the other 300+ auctions throughout the blogosphere, I just have to say, WOW! I am overwhelmed by the response and I know that every member of the Nielson family is touched beyond words. The Baby Bloggie personally had almost 600 visits yesterday. And I’ve heard that other blogs had record numbers as well. Can’t you just FEEL the love? Congrats to Alta, the winner of our auction and to Kristinia, the winner of our giveaway. Your items are on their way!

We’re always trying to bring new stuff and a broader variety of items to the shop. I’ve been really excited about working with one of our new artist contributors, Heather Hales. I’m going to recruit her to do an artist interview with us in the near future (she doesn’t know that yet), but in the meantime I just have to show you one of the incredibly adorable things she’s making exclusively for The Baby Gardner:

This vintage-inspired Playful Monkey Blanket is brand new at The Baby Gardner and a keeper for sure. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to hunt for vintage-inspired monkey stuff, but it’s not easy to find. Sock monkey fabrics are everywhere right now but other than that, not so much. So anyway, I’ve been on a mission to get vintage monkey things into the shop. Laurie is working on a really great project (more on that later) while Heather has been working on this irresistible hand-embroidered monkey blanket. Really sweet, right? And the best part? It’s personalized!! Enough said. Grab one up at The Baby Gardner and stay on the lookout for more banana-friendly fellows.