Family celebrations are a great time to bust out some genealogy. Weddings, birthdays, reunions—even funerals—are ripe for the picking.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity, along with my mom, to plan a baby shower for my cousin. The baby's due on St. Patrick's Day so I went with a rainbow theme (I hate the 'blue for boy, pink for girl' types of showers, so wanted something more universal and gender-neutral.) No matter the theme, I knew I wanted to attempt to create a Family Tree wall for the shower. After several tries at a traditional tree and realizing that it just wasn't going to work if I wanted to go farther than great-grandparents (I did!), I'd have to figure something else out. And then I had a stroke of genius. A family road map!
I mapped it out (literally) on Paint, used a friend's Cricut (Baby's great-aunt on the other side, actually) for the cars, and streamers/crepe paper for the roads. Glue dots and transparent tape were used to stick it up. I wrote given names on the cars, surnames on 'road signs'. The colors were coded to represent family branches (of the grandparents), two car types were used to distinguish between mothers & fathers. It was insanely time-consuming, but it came out better than I had hoped. The result was rewarding and I kind of felt a let down when I no longer had a creative project to work on.
Here it is in all its glory (plus some extra pics) --
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity, along with my mom, to plan a baby shower for my cousin. The baby's due on St. Patrick's Day so I went with a rainbow theme (I hate the 'blue for boy, pink for girl' types of showers, so wanted something more universal and gender-neutral.) No matter the theme, I knew I wanted to attempt to create a Family Tree wall for the shower. After several tries at a traditional tree and realizing that it just wasn't going to work if I wanted to go farther than great-grandparents (I did!), I'd have to figure something else out. And then I had a stroke of genius. A family road map!
I mapped it out (literally) on Paint, used a friend's Cricut (Baby's great-aunt on the other side, actually) for the cars, and streamers/crepe paper for the roads. Glue dots and transparent tape were used to stick it up. I wrote given names on the cars, surnames on 'road signs'. The colors were coded to represent family branches (of the grandparents), two car types were used to distinguish between mothers & fathers. It was insanely time-consuming, but it came out better than I had hoped. The result was rewarding and I kind of felt a let down when I no longer had a creative project to work on.
Here it is in all its glory (plus some extra pics) --