One of my readers left a very clever comment on my Newborn Necessities post a few weeks ago. When asked about necessities for those first few days, K. Cleaver simply wrote, “…you’ve got to have a camera!” I promptly wrote her back and said, “You are absolutely right! I would rather forget almost everything than forget the one thing that will save memories in a semi-permanent fashion.”
A digital camera is a definite must-have for the early days. My advice? Take LOTS of photos. Just keep clicking. There are plenty of photo opps…Those first few exhausting moments. Breastfeeding for the first time. Baby sleeping serenely. Tiny hands and toes. Keep going…
I wish I would have taken photos more lavishly in the first days…especially of me and the baby. I think I felt a little bit modest and camera-shy. After all, I certainly wouldn’t have won any beauty awards after childbirth. I felt like I had been run over by a truck or run an excruciating marathon. And for the first few days, I went around topless or I felt like I did due to the constant nursing. Still, I wish I had more photos. That’s the beauty of digital cameras. You can always, always, always hit delete. So take photos generously. Snap away without restraint. In fact, it might be a good idea to enlist a friend or family member to come over for an hour with the sole purpose of taking hundreds of photos.
Soon enough, you’ll have to decide what to do with all of those photos. You will probably want to make birth announcements of some kind to mail or e-mail out to everyone you know, but if you want to do something extra special for an out-of-town relative or someone who played a special part in the birth, you might want to check out frameAgram – “beautiful frames personalized with magnetic text and charms.” Just upload your photo, select your color of frame, choose the corresponding charms and letters…and insert your shipping destination. Choose between a 5 x 7 photo or a 3 x 3 photo (I’d go with the 3 x 3 because the frame is magnetic and can be placed up on the refrigerator).
Interested? Use coupon code MMJUN20 for 20% off your order. This offer expires June 30th, 2008.
WIN IT! One winner will receive a $40 gift certificate to frameAgram (that will pretty much cover one 5 x 7 photo with bells and whistles). To enter, simply leave a comment on this post prior to Monday, June 2 at midnight (don’t forget to follow the rules). The winner will be announced and contacted on Tuesday, June 3. * Winner must provide a U.S. mailing address.
*UPDATE* The winner is #8 Ann. Congratulations!
What a great idea for Father’s Day – I’m going to check it out right now!
The frame is a cute gift idea for sure. And I agree with the necessity of a digital camera – not only for the early days, but all the days to follow. I have a tiny Canon Powershot & I love that I can keep it in my purse or diaper bag & always have it ready to capture cute moments. It also takes video, which I’ve loved taking advantage of. It’s definitely one of the best investments we’ve made!
A camera is very important to have with you at all times. You never know when you’ll get the next best memory captured. Frame A Gram is a neat website. Thanks for the opportunity.
I’m a sucker for taking tons of photos, but never getting them framed. We’ve been in our house for five years and just now started putting up family photos, so this prize would be perfect for us!
I take photos almost every day between the two kiddos and I was looking for a good fathers day gift form my FIL. This would be great. Framed pics of the kiddos are great gifts
We have tons of pictures of our family and mostly the boys. I would love to have them framed in a very
special way. Great giveaway!
We are a family of photographers and always looking for new ways to gift our artwork. What a wonderful gift for Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding. Thanks for promoting the site. Melinda
I would love to win this for my father-in-law who’s coming over from England to stay with us for 6 weeks. It would be really nice to give this to him as a present for his birthday (2nd of June).
Thanks for the great giveaway!
Of course I love all of the princess charms as my girls love to dress as princesses.
You know it! LOL I’m a big scrapbooker so I have a ton of pictures. :)
This would be great for our upcoming baby girl Helana (due September 14th)! The idea of the magnetic charms is awesome! This is such a great find, I have some ideas for some upcoming gift giving with these nifty frames!
Totally agree, NEVER forget the camera! This would be quite a fun way to frame up some of those great shots!
Digital is just the cats meow. I have all my photos archived on my computer and an external and CD’s (I’m a backup freak) and my very favorite ones are printed out.
The frames are so cute and they have so many different charms to choose from. Nice site and cool frames!
Oh I love this idea for Father’s Day!
I’ve always taken so very many photos – we bought our first digital camera when our first baby was 3 months old. We realized just how much money on film and processing we would save. :)
I am a camera happy mom! I’m always taking pictures. I have a 4-year-old little girl and an almost 2-year-old little boy. They just grow up so fast and I want to capture every cute moment I can. FrameAgram sounds like a neat way to share a special photo. I also thought you might be interested in a fun photo sharing website – http://www.smilebox.com. (You may already know about it.) I found it through a friend, and it is so much fun. And it is FREE! You can make a digital scrapbook, postcards, greetings, slideshows, etc… You can pay a small fee if you want to print your creations, but otherwise, you can just store them to enjoy on the computer. You can even upload them to a blog!
I so agree with having a camera handy in those first few weeks. You want to hold onto every possible memory, even if you think it’s hokey at the time! :o) The frames are adorable. I was having fun designing different frames!
This would be fabulous to win! I love to take photos and never have enough frames for them!
I love having pictures of my grandsons – this is great!
I have missed so many opportunities of things I know I will never see again in my lifetime…because I didn’t have a camera with me when they happened.
I always have my digital ready…I love the design ideas for tweens great that should could design it herself and perfect for a picture of her and her bff.
3beez at bellsouth dot net
Wow!!
How cute!
kelli at pfrog dot net
I love pictures of my grandchildren, thanks
The frames would be great
Beautiful frames :) *Thanks* for the giveaway!
This sweepstakes has been featured on Sweepstakes Advantage, http://www.sweepsadvantage.com. The Web’s Largest Directory of Free Online Sweepstakes. Good Luck to Everyone!
What a fantastic giveaway.
That is a great gift to give to grandparents that live out of state!!!
This metroploitan mama wants this frame.
I’m trying to catch up with my photography hobby after the birth of my baby. This would great!
Now that my daughter is 7 I cannot tell you how much I treasure her baby/toddler pictures. I keep looking back and marveling at how my baby has grown. The memories are precious. Now she loves sitting with me while I go through the pictures and I wish I had taken more. Now I take my camera everywhere and I try not to miss a moment.
WHAT A FABULOUS GIVEAWAY~
Thank you for the great giveaway!
metropolitanmama rocks!
:)
i would love to win!
What a great idea. I would love to get one for hubby for Father’s Day. Will also need to remember it for all the Grandparents.
You have to take alot of photos. I took so many photos of both kids when they were born. Actually, I haven’t stop taking their picture. I always have my camera.
Wonderful gift idea for my brother. This will be his first Father’s Day.
gkstratos@yahoo.com
thanks for the giveaway
Thanks for the great giveaway!
A nice present to give to a new mom!
I think I forgot to write the camera on my must-have list on your site, but I definitely didn’t forget it when we were there! Chris took a bunch of pictures of my labor, the baby and her first moments, the family there to see us, etc. It’s so fun to look back on! These Frame a Grams look great, and would be a good Father’s Day gift for him. Maybe a picture of all of his girls for his office could fill it! Thanks…
Pick me, please. I’d luv to be framed!
This would be a perfect gift for my father. We just moved from TN to ID so he doesn’t get to see his grandkids anymore.
I love the idea of being able to personalize a frame so much. Thanks for showing this product.
Love this idea and what a gift to give. ;-) Thanks. I have the perfect picture to send my dad for Father’s Day.
This is a great idea! I love taking pictures & I’m a frame junkie, so I’d love to win. Thanks for the chance!
frame my art
I love the charms so much! The little baby hands and heart charms are the cutest things ever! Thank you for the giveaway, I’d love to win.
the frames are sweet
Like to get this for baby birthday present.
What a beautiful frame. Thanks for offering this giveaway. Please enter me. Thanks.
Pick me. It’s gorgeous!
This is such a sweet gift idea. Personalizing it with charms is such a unique and special part of it.
what a great present this would make…wow
I love the digital frames that are available at framAgram. What a lovely idea for any proud gran’ma.
love to win for fathers day
Oh how right she was! I forgot to mention that we had a camera with us! We also had an iPhone, so we did take pictures. I wish we had taken more photos right away, but we have a few thousand at this point in my sons life, so I can’t complain too much.
I love ordering pictures online–and there is nothing wrong with doing that for free!
I want one:()
This is a great idea for my parents for the Holidays. I’d love to take a picture of all six of the kids, get a lovely frame and send it off to them. I’m sure it would be up on the mantle in no time!
I love taking photos and I have many photos. I think this frame will be nice to use. I do need one like this. :)
Always a great idea!
And how are you today?
Nice site and prize!
Thanks :)
wonderful contest–please enter me…THANKS
I love this as a gift idea for Father’s Day! I also agree about the camera, I bring mine everywhere I go with my 2 year old son, and I have another one on the way and we take lots of belly pictures!
Please enter me.
I am a shutterbug and love picture frames… Would love to have pictures of family all around me… i am looking for a nanny job and maybe leaving family behind
What a quick and easy way to send a personalized gift without even having to touch it!
how neat is this.
nice frame, im in, thanks!
What a great idea!
I have been looking for a special frame for my favorite picture. Thanks for introducing this site,it has just what I want!
Enter Me !!
Very nice, enter me please
my daughter would love designing a frame for her Grandma
THANK YOU GOD BLESS
lol to all
cute frames! would love to have one to put on my desk at work.
cool site!
A camera is very important to have with you at all times. You never know when you’ll get the perfect shot
What a great contest! Thank you.
enter me!
great prize, thanks.
Neat prize!
Thank you! I’d love to win this :)
I love the creativity of this frame.
i wish we had taken more photos when our kids were infants.
This would be perfect for father’s day.
Seems like a cool concept, this frameagram business. I’m horrible at taking enough pictures. You just reminded me I should dust off the camera and get some “end of spring” photos!
I’d love to have one for all the zillions of pictures I have of Connor!
I blogged you on Prize-A-Tron
http://www.prizeatron.com
Would love to give this to my dad with a picture of my sister and myself for fathers day.
I’m addicted to taking pictures and having several copies of each photo. This would be neat for one of my special pictures. Thanks so much for the opportunity.
like to win this
I have a number of photos I could use–my son is graduating from elementary school next month so I’m sure I’ll be adding MANY more to the pile! Thank you for the contest!
This would make a wonderful Father’s Day gift for my husband!
I blogged you here:
http://laurawilliamsmusings.blogspot.com/2008/05/wednesday-edition-of-contests-galore_28.html
great
Count me in!
Totally agree that a camera is the #1 necessity. And even though I took a zillion newborn pics, I wish I had taken more– I never did get a sleeping one, or a nudie shot, or a baby-in-palm-of-hand shot…
What a cute idea, I have the perfect picture in mind already!
Gonna make such an awesome gift!
I take a lot of photos and use many of them as gifts to make a lasting memory. Trying to find that special frame can be somewhat of a challenge though and you know it’s all about the presentation. What a neat way to give someone a special gift.
Trying to find picture frames that are the right size, color, style, and suit the picture is like trying to find a needle in haystack. So being able to customize a frame is a genius idea.
wow how nice
please count this grandpa in
So cute, hope I win it!
please enter me!
great idea
How neat! I’d use this to make up a frame to put up a picture of me, my husband, and the six children together.
Wow. With all our family scattered from one end of the U.S. to the next I think this is a wonderful idea! I don’t even know WHO I would give this to first.
The design preview function is great to visualize what you want to do & what you want your end product to look like. Wonderful. Loads of people I can think of who would go ga-ga for it!
great contest thanks
these are so cute! my girls would have a blast putting one together :)
This would make a great housewarming gift for my best friend!
I am in agreement with the digital camera for those early years. We are “camera happy” in this household. We often don’t capture the first time a child does something on camera because our first desire is to actually live in the moment. But after the “oohs”, “ahhs”, smiles and laughs we grab our camera for the second time. (hey, grandparents will never know the difference)
This frame is a great father’s day idea. I am always looking for something like this for my husband and am going to check out the site now.
We are big into giving pictures as gifts. For Mother’s Day I blew up a black and white that I took of my husband and our two sons to a 10×13, had it framed at Hobby Lobby (they will do it while you wait, with custom cut matting) and gave it to my mother-in-law. She couldn’t get it on the wall fast enough after she saw it.
I love this one!
I love having pictures of my kids dispalyed around my house.
Oh gosh, this makes me laugh. When our sweet baby was born in October all my pictures at the hospital were blurry. I quickly discovered my autofocus had died. AGH. EMERGENCY. I sent my husbant STAT to Best Buy for a new Nikon dslr. While we were expecting a big bill that week it was for the labor and delivery and not the $1500 camera!! Yikes!! I LOVE my new camera but I am normally not very spontaneous with big purchases.
I have to admit that there were a lot more picture and video taking with the first child than the second. Eeeek, did I just admit that? ;)
I take way too many pictures of my cherub, so many that she instinctively turns away when ‘the mammarazzi’ points and clicks in her direction! ‘Tis the price of cuteness I’m afraid! I’d like to use this GC toward a special photo for my parents.
My wife would be ecstatic about having this opportunity.
just to cool
enter me
I like it :)
I’m such a picture person, I’d love this!
Pictures definitely help – We just got the referral of our daughter and although she is over 6000 miles away- I feel closer to her because I can look at her picture and anticipate her joining us- I cant wait!
Count me in. I had something similar from my Father before he passed. I’ll cherish it forever. I hope to leave something for my children!
My parents would love this! I would love to send them a special photo of my children in a really neat frame. They live far away so they feel the miss out on a lot, it’d be great to send them some smiles.
I love that you get to design your own..so personal..great idea.
I would love this for taking pictures of my grandchildren.
Would love to win!
My baby just graduated from kindergarten. His picture would look perfect in one of these (if I could keep from crying long enough to actually order the frames)
I am a huge picture freak and would love some unique frames for all our photos!
I love pictures frames; please enter me!
I could really use some picture frames!
Luv scrapbooking. Would make good Fathers day gift
I would love to have a frame for my many pictures.
Nothing is more important in terms of tangibles than my pictures. I’m a scrapbooker through and through.
This is such a neat and unique gift idea. I know my mom would be thrilled to receive this!
what a special way to frame pictures, you always have neat things!
my wife would love this, this is terrific.
This would be great for gifts!
This is a great way to get those pics to the out of town relatives. Great giveaway!
please enter me thanks
What a fantastic idea. My husband loves all things photography. It would be really nice to frame one of our son’s first birthday pictures! : )
This would be something for everyone!
This would be great to win, enter me.
thanks my dad would love this
This is a great fathers day gift!
I take my camera with me everywhere I go. Great giveaway! Hubby would love this.
I’m never without my camera. Great giveaway , thanks!
very practical prize!
please enter me :)
Fantastic gieveaway keep up the great contests; I love entering. Thanks SW
Cool gift for the grandparents! Excellent!
This is something everyone can use! Thank you for the opportunity!
I need a frameAgram for Nana, she live 600 plus miles away. :(
I would love to win this contest.
Neat prize!! Thanks so much for the giveaway!
This is great–please enter me! Thanks!
What a great idea
Thanks for the giveaway! This is an awesome prize.
With 2 teenage daughters who seem to take everything with them. These would be great, the 3×3 photo size would be perfect for thier lockers.
Thank you so much..
These would be perfect for vacation memories — thanks for the chance.
Nice prize, enter me, please
Great contest,count me in to win
I agree, this would be an excellent Father’s Day gift. Thanks!
WOW great gift
thanks for the sweepstakes offer!
Neat prize!! Thanks for the great giveaway! :)
Wow, I have so many photos that need to be framed or put into photo books. This would be great.
My daughter is our photographer/scrapbooker. She takes really clever pictures of everything. Her favorite gift to receive is a picture frame of any kind. Thanks for such a useful giveaway!
My grandpa would love one of these for father’s day! He lives so far from his grandkids, he’s always looking for a way to display pictures of us!
What a cool product! I would love to win this one!
For new grandbabies
I have tons of pictures around waiting from me to do something with them. Frames would be really great. I hope you make it on Oprah!!
You are SO right! I wish I had more photos of ME and my kids!!! I’m always the one behind the camera!! Since this has started to bother me I now take self portraits of me an my kids. I just throw my arm around them and turn the camera around!
I love taking pictures.
Please enter me into the contest. Thanks!
Please enter me into the contest. Thanks!
This seems like a great camera! My daughter loves posing for pictures and I love capturing those special moments in her life!
That’s really neat! I’d never heard of this before!