Our Little Girl’s Nursery… Part 1 | The Red Headed Hostess

So… I am wrapping up my nursery decorating, organizing, dreaming and all things of the sort, and I thought to share a few things.

First… this is the proposed name.  I just think it is beautiful, and especially meaningful.

I have always loved Hannah from the Old Testament, and I would love to have her be special to my daughter too, and that thought was just driven home when I learned that my husband’s great-great-grandmother’s name was Hannah and it is HER pumpkin pie that my husband looks forward to every single Thanksgiving… in fact his mother makes him his VERY OWN pie!  She was a very special lady, and her descendants still speak of her, what a great honor.

And Joy is my middle name.  So everything traces somewhere special.

Now let me just say that this is not her official name.  My wonderful husband wants to hold her first and make sure this name fits.  I can’t wait for that.

So I started thinking… if this little girl is named after an ancestor, then it is important for her to know about this person.

So step one… I wanted to put a family tree in her room.

As I was making this project, it just really hit home how my marriage really was the coming together of two families.  And how this little girl is a product of that.  What an amazing thought.  I mean, when it is out on paper like this, you can see it!

So I drew and colored a tree and then I cut out a bunch of little pieces of paper and wrote down the names of each mother and father that she descends from.

I used new.familysearch.org to find most of the names for the family tree.  It was super helpful and interesting!  Plus I found a few holes and issues that needed to be resolved.  Turns out this project had more than one purpose.

AND… upon getting the names, we found out that she has ANOTHER Great-Great-Great Grandmother with the name Hannah, and a Great-Great-Great-Great Grandmother named Hannah!!

So, I wrote out the names and I taped them into place.  I wanted the names to stick up for a little 3-D effect, so I rolled up the tape and used it that way.

I actually highly recommend doing this because when you are arranging and fitting in such a large amount of names, there is going to be so much re-arranging, that gluing would have been very frustrating!

Oh… and I also took a gold paint pen and colored the outsides of each name to give it a little pop.  I used watercolor paper too, I wanted the texture and sturdiness.

And then I framed it.  You can see that the names aren’t perfectly straight, and that was fine with me.  I wanted it to look crafty and like I made it.

And then on the bottom I added a little heart that says, “We all love Hannah”.  I mean… how often do we think of that?  How often do we think of the love that those who came before us had for us?  Their descendants?  I know I think about those that will come after me, so I am sure that they did as well.  We all come from a long legacy of love.

And I kind of think that it is good for kids and teenagers to know that there are A LOT of people rooting for them.

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If you want to make one of these for each of your kids, or for you…

Here is the PDF of the tree:family tree

And here it is in a JPEG:


If you want to make it for a boys room, You could open it in your photo editing program and then play around with the tones, and maybe change it to a sepia color.  If one of you tries this successfully, send it my way (through my contact info) and I will share it with the rest of you.

Also, I think this could make a GREAT YW’s activity.  And it could probably actually be a personal progress project or experience depending on if she has to actually research, find and plug in names into her own genealogical line.   Wouldn’t it be cool to have these lined up at YW’s in Excellence?  If I were to do this with the YW, I would show them a picture (or make your own to display), and then give them a deadline to have all the names by (on my tree above it goes up to her great-great-great Grandparents).  And then for the activity, you would could adapt the following directions to fit within the activity’s time slot.

How to Make a Tree:

1-  Print one tree onto and 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of water color paper (my watercolor notebook is larger than this, so I just cut the page down before)

2- Cut out 63 small rectangles, plus a few extras.  You can see that I made “Hannah’s” name larger, and then each generation got a little smaller, you can determine however you want to do this.  And my rectangles were not perfect, and I was fine with that.

3- Use a gold paint pen to outline each rectangle (this really does add dimension and make it look really nice).

4-  Use a thin tipped pen or marker to write each name out.  You could print them out as well on your computer.

5-  Place the names out on the tree as you go.  Start with the descendant in the very center and then her mother and father above and below her.  Then put the maternal lines on the right side of the paper and the paternal on the left side.  So, next to my husband, on the right was his mother’s name, and then next to her name was her parent’s names, and so on.  If you are doing this as an activity for your YW, you may want to draw a diagram out for them to follow.

 

 

 

24 comments

  1. Oh Shannon, what a wonderful mother your baby Hannah Joy has. I sure hope that her daddy looks into her eyes and sees a Hannah. I write as if she is already here because I believe your baby from the very beginning of her little heart beat was aware of you. Her sweet spirit was up there waiting with so much excitement. Your idea for her name and the family tree with the heart is such a beautiful idea. You delight me every time I visit your blog. Without ever meeting you I feel as if your one of my friends. Friends share, left you up, friends want the very best for you, friends want to make sure your on the right path, friends lead you, guide you and walk beside you. You are such a friend through your blog. I just wish I had a way to give back for all the knowledge you have shared of our Savior and the scriptures. God bless you and your husband and your sweet baby girl Hannah Joy. What a beautiful name. She will bring great joy to everyone on that family tree. Some she will be leaving behind the veil as she comes to meet those on this side. I’m so happy for you and the new daddy.

  2. Love, love, love this! I had a similar idea and you just made my life so much simpler! Thank you! I love the name Hannah, my two year is named Hannah!

  3. Great Idea! So simple and yet so lovely. Our ward is asking everyone to present a 5 generation sheet to our Stake President for next year’s Ward Conference. This will be perfect for my YW to complete their’s.

    Thanks for your ideas!

  4. I love this idea!!! My ten year old daughter is named Hannah after several of her ancestors that bare this name. I also have a cute story….my daughters favorite primary hymn is Follow the Prophet. When they sing this song she always sings out extra loud during the Samuel verse. 😉 She says if she has a boy she plans on naming him Samuel. This touches me since I also have a brother named Samuel. Names are a very important part of what makes us who we are!

  5. our girls all have middle names that were chosen from family history. (their first names are a little unusual, so nice normal names from family history for middle names it was!)

    that said I didnt want to single out a specific grandma, or greatgrandma (all alive) to name them after. I felt a bit bad about that! Like playing favourites. So they all have names where we had lots of ancestors with that name. There are 10 or more elizabeths, 6 Catherines, Many Annes and Marys! I felt good that I wasnt naming them after one far off ancestor that could have been mean, crazy, or just a regular nasty person. I figured that in that bunch of 10 or so Elizabeths several of them had to be nice and wonderful no??

  6. Yes, all four of our children have a name from their fathers side. It started by accident, but by number four is was tradition and they are all very proud that they have a family name. The fourth child thinks he is very special because he got all three grandpa’s names-my father’s, my husband’s biological father, and my husband’s stepfather’s name. They are sure to tell every one who they are named after so I know this is has special meaning for them as well. (P.S. I love the name Hannah and we just had a new addition to our ward three days ago that happens to have the same name! Now every time I see her I will think of Hannah in the scriptures.) Thank you for all of your thoughts and insights.

  7. Love your project. I work with the Beehives in our ward and I’m going to share this with the counselor I work with. I think it would be a great project.
    Also wanted to share that I love the name you’ve chosen. My second daughter (child #5) is named Hannah. I love the gentleness of it. I love that in Hebrew it means “grace of God”.
    Just be prepared for her to be called “Hannah-banana’ for the rest of her life!
    All of our children have family-names. We share with them why they were named such and about the people they share the name with. They feel and love the connections of it.
    Best wishes!

  8. What a wonderful idea !! Your tree will look so cute in her nursery and will give her an appreciation for her heritage. Glad there are Hannahs on both sides. by the way–thanks so much for the cute note you sent the other day. wish I had the penmanship that you do.

  9. My daughter has Down Syndrome and I have been planning to do a simple family tree using photos and going back just 2 or 3 generations for a more visual grasp. This simplifies a project we were already working on. Thanks.

  10. I love, love, LOVE this idea!!! I’ve been trying to make a word art family tree to have as wall decor, but I’m not having great luck with it. This will be a great help to create a fun family tree. I love that you gave it some dimension!

  11. As someone who taught others a lot of paper crafts for years, I just wanted to let you know that a really good way to give that 3-D look of raising up the names is with Mounting tape. They also sell the very same 3-D tape in the Scrapbook sections, but if you go to the hardware section, where the duct tape and such are, you will find it MUCH cheaper, and in packages that hold more of the tape on it.

    You can use it layered to make it even more popped up. So…after you lay it all out the way you want it….THEN you can attach them with the mounting tape.

    Having said that. I must add that I LOVE your BLOG, and all you put into it. I have shared your scripture studies things with everybody. At Church, in Emails, to my adult children, (even on Pintrest, which I am very new to) Your hard work is blessing many people! Thanks for all you do!

    This is a really cute idea, I like how you laid out the names. This is such an inspiration! Thanks again!

  12. i adore your family tree! And the funny thing is, i saw some of the names on it and they are very similar to some in my family both Dean and Christensen. Wouldn’t it be funny if we *were* related? I know there was many Christensen’s though! 🙂 Hannah Joy is a lovely name!

    http://munchtalk.blogspot.com/

  13. Love this! Thanks for the tree download, as I am not artistically blessed. 🙂 I have four kids and I want to put each of their names in the center of the tree and put hang it up in our gallery wall in the hall. Part of it is an ancestor wall so it will fit right in. Thanks!

  14. I love this idea and plan on using this for a YW activity. I also love the visual of having the family trees all on display at a YW in Excellence. That is a good thought.

  15. Thanks for sharing! Your tree turned out beautiful. What a special piece for a special little ladies room :0)

  16. Oh! I love this tree!
    I found you via Pinterest, and I just had to stop and say hi because we have a Hannah Joy. I just love that name! Did you know Hannah means, “God’s favor and grace.” <3
    Thanks for sharing your lovely work!
    Jess

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