Christening Day - Fab New Collection Now Online!

Just added - super new Christening Day gifts!
We know that many of our bride customers stay with us and come back as young mums! Now we are seeing them order their Christening Bibles , cross necklaces and silver lockets as the family celebrates this special occasion together. In our earlier blog post we highlighted our brilliant collection of Christening Gifts and this week we have added a super new set of products to preserve those Christening Day memories.

Sarah has designed a really cute motif for this set; blocked in silver foil on a white leather panel are sweet baby clothes hanging on a washing line on a background dotted with little silver hearts. Each design is expertly covered in pure white linen bearing the leather panel on a silver backing card.

Christening Day is the little one's first public appearance and cameras will be clicking away as family and friends gather to welcome the infant into the community. To keep all these precious photos together to look back on, we have designed a photo album in two sizes. The small album has 30 pages of plain cream card that will take photos 6x4" or 7x5" in size.

Christening Day Small Photo Album

If you have lots of photos, then there is the Chunky photo album containing a generous 50 pages; you can get two 6x4" or one 7x5" on each page.

Christening Day Chunky Photo Album

We included a guest book for collecting well wishes and signatures...

Christening Day Guest Book

and finally a nice roomy keepsake box for storing all the Christening gifts, cards and souvenirs.

Christening Day Keepsake Box

International Children's Book Day

April 2nd is International Children's Book Day! This is Hans Christian Anderson's birthday and since 1967, International Children's Book Day has been celebrated all around the world, aiming to inspire each new generation of children with a love of books. Often ICBD is linked to celebrations around children's books and other special events such as encounters with authors and illustrators, writing competitions or announcements of book awards. 

Image:http://www.ibby.org/index.php?id=269

Among the activities of the organising body, IBBY, is the Children In Crisis project:

 "The purpose of this programme is to provide support for children whose lives have been disrupted through war, civil disorder or natural disaster. The two main activities that will be supported by the Fund are the therapeutic use of books and storytelling in the form of bibliotherapy, and the creation or replacement of collections of selected books that are appropriate to the situation. We hope the programme will not only provide immediate support and help, but that it will also make a long term impact in the communities, thus supporting IBBY’s goal of giving every child the Right to Become a Reader."

A love of books and reading starts in earliest childhood and bedtime stories are among the fondest memories we share with our children. Many of us will remember into adulthood a favourite bedtime book that we pored over until we know every word by heart. We have put together some beautiful collections of children's stories, both classic and contemporary.
 
For many of us our first experience of stories is reading the classic fairy tales that are passed down from generation to generation. Magic, romance, fairies, elves and witches are all ingredients that make up the classic fairytales that enchant every generation of children. This luxury cloth-bound book, sumptuously foil-blocked with gold lettering, retells eighteen classic fairytales from across the world and is a beautiful volume to treasure throughout childhood and beyond. Among the much-loved stories are "The Frog Prince", "Sleeping Beauty", "Prince Ivan and the Firebird", "Cinderella", "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Snow Queen". Each page is written in a large, clear font and beautifully illustrated with imaginative and colourful pictures to bring the stories alive.

Fairy Tale Treasury

There is nothing as special as settling down with your little one for a bedtime story. This is a beautiful collection of classic and modern tales of fun and adventure, each page full of engaging coloured pictures and a large clear font. Bound in a soft padded hardback format, this book is destined to become a bedtime favourite and keepsake for years to come. The eight stories are: “King Donkey Ears”, “The Enormous Turnip”, “Danny the Dragon”, “The Inch Prince”, “Androcles and the Lion”, “Stone Soup”, “The Clumsy Crocodile” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. This one will be go down well with ages 5-7+.

Illustrated Stories For Bedtime

Sharing a story with a little one is a moment to treasure and we all remember the wonderful stories that were read to us as children. Here is a beautifully illustrated collection of over twenty stories of excitement, magic and humour. This memorable collection includes classic tales like ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Treasure Island’, 'Rapunzel', and ‘The Princess and the Pea’ along with some original tales such as ‘The Bed Monster’s Secret’ and ‘The Pesky Parrot’. Each story is written in a large clear font and every page is delightfully illustrated with colourful pictures that will inspire young readers to follow the story. With a ribbon marker, this beautiful hardback book makes a gorgeous gift. It makes a lovely gift for children of 6 years and over who are starting to read for themselves.

Illustrated Stories For Children

Of all the children's classics, The Wind in the Willows is one of the best loved: it revolves around the adventure of four key animal characters and the story is just magical. This edition is a well-presented hardback book beautifully illustrated. The original story was illustrated by E.H.Shepard and although Robert Ingpen's illustrations here are quite different in style (gloomier and more atmospheric), they do justice to the story and have a similar kind of charm about them. All in all, this has to be one of our favourite editions of the book - it looks great as a gift to any child. The pages are really thick and the whole book is well presented - you just know you're in for a treat when you open the book.

The Wind In The Willows

A love of reading is one of the most valuable gifts we can give to our children. Watch their imaginations spring into life as they explore the fantasy world that opens up around them as they travel with you through stories that link the generations and inspire their own awakening creativity. These books make beautiful gifts to treasure and are ideal for Christenings and birthdays for the special little ones in the family.

'My Beautiful Twins' Baby Record Book

Coming soon! Pale ivory leather cover! Photo coming soon!
OMG, it's twins! When even one new baby arrives, there are so many moments and photos that the proud parents will want to remember, but with two, just think!  We already had a fantastic collection of Baby Record Books, and one of our most popular is our exclusive ‘My Beautiful Baby’ Record Book.

But when customers started asking us if we had any record books for twins, we realised that there really wasn't much at all on the market just for new twins so we designed our 'My Beautiful Twins' Record Book, a new version especially for parents of twins. Even baby twins are such little characters in themselves that it is lovely to be able to create a personal record for each of them.

Our Twins Record Book is a truly gorgeous volume; hand bound in the UK by traditionally skilled bookbinders, it is in the form of a ring binder covered in high quality Italian leather, silver foil blocked with a sweet teddy bear and the wording ‘My Beautiful Twins’. The inside is lined with luxurious black moiré silk and it has a triangular leather pocket for storing a scan photo or mementos.

Inside are two packs of A5 sized pages for recording each of the babies’ milestone moments individually, followed by a block of 12 pages to display favourite photos. The pages themselves are really colourful and feature cute animal illustrations and decorative borders, with plenty of prompts and space for recording your thoughts and emotions. 

We have included pages for all the things our new mums told us they wanted, including:

·         - Birth details

·         - My handprint

·         - How we felt when we knew you were on the way

·         - Your ultrasound picture

·         - The day we first saw you on the ultrasound machine 

·         - Baby name ideas 

·         - The day we came home 

·         - Baby's firsts 

·         - A few of your favourite things 

·         - Weight and height chart

·         - A little letter to baby

·         - What we hope for your future 

·         - Your lovely pictures.

Finally, we tie the record book with a ribbon bow and enclose it in a sturdy and stylish white box to keep it safe for years to come.

To complete the range we have this matching 'My Beautiful Baby Photo Album', with 50 interleaved pages of thick, acid-free ivory card, the perfect place to store those treasured photos. We thought it would be great to extend the Twins range to include all our 'Beautiful Baby' products, so a Twins version is on its way!

To complete the Twins set will be a matching Guest Book too, a stylish, thickly padded book containing, 64 pages of plain lemon paper for your guests to leave their well wishes. These books make a lovely family keepsake to remember a Christening, baby shower, baby's birthday or congratulations on the birth.

Each of these gorgeous Twins books would make a stunning gift for any soon-to-be mum of twins, but the pair would be a real treat! Why not pop it on your wish list?

Update! My Beautiful Baby Baby Record Book now available in pink and blue!

Pink My Beautiful Baby Record Book

Blue My Beautiful Baby Record Book

 

Christening Gifts To Treasure

A Christening is always a delightful family occasion as the little one is welcomed into the family, the church and the community. It has long been a tradition for guests and, of course, godparents, to offer a gift to mark the occasion. 

Photo used under Creative Commons from JanetR3

Traditionally, certain gifts were popular choices for Christenings and some of these are still very much favoured today, albeit with a modern twist.

• Caudle cups - or two handled mugs - were used many years ago by parents of newborns; the cups would be filled with an oatmeal gruel flavoured with Madeira wine and served "medicinally" to the parents fro three days after the birth. These cups were handed down through the generations and may the origin of today's Christening mugs.

• The giving of silver apostle spoons is thought to date back to Tudor times; depending on the wealth of the family, a baby might receive the full set of twelve, the four gospel spoons or just a single spoon. This is probably where the phrase "born with a silver spoon in his mouth" came from. Whilst apostle spoons are less popular today, it is still traditional to give silver.

• Silver has always been a valuable metal, so giving silver to a newborn was seen as a start to setting up a nest egg for a baby. The Victorians adapted many useful items to silver gifts and from this time we see silver eggcups, napkin rings, cutlery, cups and rattles.

Recently we've been working to put together a really super Christening Gift section on the website, so we took the popular traditions and added a contemporary twist. We think Christening gifts should be something to last a lifetime and maybe even pass on to future generations, so we have chosen only tasteful and well made items that will stand the test of time.

Keeping with the silver tradition, we have just added a lovely sterling silver cross necklace, which comes in a stylish white box, personalised with a silver brass nameplate - it makes a beautiful keepsake.

 In the same presentation box we also have this sweet baby's christening bangle:

 China plates and mugs are always welcome choices and we found some real beauties! Based on the traditional caudle cups are two cute designs. We have these lovely bone china mugs with a pink or blue stork motif that you can personalise with a name and message.

We also found this adorable range, featuring blue trains for little boys and pink prams for girls.

In this design we also found a new take on the classic Christening plate. Now your guests can sign the plate with the permanent marker provided and, leave to dry for 24 hours and you have a permanent souvenir of the day. How cool is that!

We liked this design so much that we couldn't resist adding one more piece, a pair of sweet china moneyboxes. They'll look so cute in the nursery and are a great way to start off the little one's savings fund!

 One of the sweetest china gifts we found was this pair of personalised breakfast sets, each with a mug, bowl and plate. The child's name is spelled out in a cute animal alphabet to make a lovely keepsake!

You can never give a child too many cuddly toys! This sweet teddy bear wears a T shirt with the youngster's name and Christening date - he's just certain to become an old friend!

Of course the focal point of the Christening is the religious ceremony and often one of the godparents will choose to offer a Bible. We have lots of Bibles to choose from, but these three are  special Christening editions of the King James Version, an enduring and treasured gift that will follow the little one through life.

Something personal for the nursery always goes down well. For something a bit unusual how about a sweet cushion with the little one's name on it?

Of course, there will be many souvenirs from the Christening that the family will want to keep safe: invitations, the order of service, the shawl, the Bible and all the lovely cards and gifts. We have lots of gorgeous keepsake boxes but these are just ideal. First up is a specially designed large Christening Keepsake box with a pretty christening gown design.

Another popular choice is this beautiful Jewelled Cross Keepsake Box covered in pure, white linen and decorated with a silvery jewelled cross motif.

Our exclusive Leather and Lined range also has an adorable keepsake box and matching photo album that will house all your Christening memories beautifully! These are covered in white linen and embellished with a pretty white leather panel that reads 'Our Little Angel' in pale pink foil, with a tiny jewelled heart - so sweet!

The Christening Day will give you with loads of photo opportunities for the youngster's first public appearance and a Christening photo album will make a fab gift for the proud parents. There are loads of super baby photo albums on our site but these three are my favourites for Christenings: our Large Christening Photo Album has a cute silver embroidery of a teddy, star and pram on white linen background.

 Then there is this pretty linen album with its Christening Feet embroidered motif:

The other album I really like is our handmade Cute Booties Album, covered in textured paper and finished with a delicate pair of babies bootees. This album has slip-in transparent sleeves too so it's super-easy to use!

So if there is a Christening coming up among your friends or family, or you have the honour of being chosen as a godparent, do take a look at our fabulous range of Christening gifts and we can also help out with a selection of pretty Christening Cards to go with your gift. Happy shopping!

NEW!! Our beautiful new set of linen covered Christening Day photo albums, guest book and keepsake box has just arrived! They are just adorable! Click here to take a look!