DIY - Hospital Name Plaque

Well, it's been a while since I've had a "crafty" post - and of course this one is also related to the twins. It's just a little baby crazy around here.

In Brazil it is customary to have a personalized name plaque at the hospital when your baby is born. You walk down the halls of the maternity ward and are greeted by all sorts of simple (and not-so-simple) name signs adorning all the doors of the recovery rooms. When Elena was born, my sister-in-law made me a cute little sign to hang on the door.

Some examples of the signs you'd see in the hospital

A few weeks ago it hit me that I needed to get going on a name plaque for the girls! I didn't really look around for inspiration, I just wanted to use what we had around the house. (My hubby gets worried when I say things like, "I've got a new project!" He was happy that this one only cost me $10)

Here's what I started with:

The decorative wooden sign was one that I had bought a few years ago, and I'm not quite sure why as we aren't really big wine drinkers in our family. So it could definitely be turned into something more useful. The other things were collected from various baby showers and I bought a few little extra things. 

1. First I used my handsaw to cut the scrap piece of wood to the right length to create a shelf at the bottom of the sign.

2. A few small nails to secure the bottom piece,

3. All nailed in across the length of the board.

4. Painted white with a few coats with my helper, Lucas. (He also added some other designs when I wasn't looking). 

5. Lined up some green scrapbook paper to wrap around the bottom. 

6 - 8. Glued the top, bottom and back and smoothing the paper around the edges.

9. Ran a piece of masking tape along the back to secure the paper. Notice Lucas had also added some designs to the back of the wood. 

 10. Designed a background for the sign highlighting the girls names.

11. Printed.

12. Cut it out. The paper didn't quite reach the whole length of the wood so I cut two slices off the ends and added a band of ribbon in the middle.

13. The sign ready with the background and green scrapbook paper.

 The last thing to do was to  arrange the flowers and prams and glue them down with my hot-glue gun. There's a small hook so we can hang this on the hospital door and when we come home it will find a place in their corner of our room until they get their own. I like that it can hang on the wall as well as rest on a shelf.

Ok girls, we're ready for you now! 

What's in a Name?

Choosing a name for your unborn child can be a fun and exciting process. It's such an important part of your child's identity. Parents often spend hours and hours poring over lists of names, writing down their favorites, vetoing some of their spouses choices, creating a short-list and finally settling on a name for their baby. We look at family names, meanings, origins, spelling, pronunciation, possible nicknames, even sometimes going so far as to imagine how the name could be twisted and made fun of.

With twins it is even harder! Thinking of names that go together and match the family name. Plus, with twins, people have a lot of different ideas of how you can solidify that special bond with their names. Here are some "themes" that I've seen in articles about naming twins:

I could add a cute photo of a nice
handwritten list - but let's be real here
- it was all done on an iPad app. :) 

(Keep in mind that we're having two girls so these are all girl names)

Seasons: Autumn and Summer

Gems: Amber and Ruby

Virtues: Charity, Harmony, Joy, Hope

"Destination" names: London and Paris

Months: April, June, May

Flowers: Rose, Violet, Daisy, Lily

Then of course there are names that start with the same letter, or names that rhyme, or even one name and the other the same but spelled backwards (like Heaven and Nevaeh - still not sure how to pronounce that one?)



While I think some of these are beautiful names, I don't usually go for matchy-matchy things, and in our family we have a whole other list of criteria that names have to fit into...

The names should
- sound nice together (and also with their sibling's names)
- work well with our family name (Portela)
- have some special meaning to us, or a tie to a family name
- be easy to read, spell and pronounce in both English and Portuguese.

 Not too much to ask for, right?

Ever since we found out we were having girls, people have been asking about the names. It's common cultural etiquette here to announce both the gender and the name of your child well before the birth.

So, without further ado...

Arriving mid May 

How did you choose your child's name?