Count Your Many Blessing Dresses

Farmer's Dozen - Blessing Dresses
  You have a great piece of antique wood and you don't know what to do with it?  I have the perfect idea!

On a road trip we happened to come across and old abandoned, torn down shack which had some great pieces of wood on it.  The piece we ended up with was about 5 feet long and about 1 1/2 feet wide, probably about 1 1/2 inches thick.  It has several old (antique) square head nails in it.  Perfect fit for a wall in our living room.  To hang the board, Rick made a heavy duty hanger on the back, since it is extremely heavy.

Farmer's Dozen - Antique Wooden Board

We, (meaning Rick), took some antique knobs we found in a store in Seattle named Earthwise Architectural Salvage (This store is a must visit, if you are ever in Seattle!)  We had nine kids at the time and randomly placed the 9 knobs (a knob for each child), so they weren't all placed directly in a row. 

Farmer's Dozen - Antique Knob

In the picture below it is showing the raw edge and, if you look closely, one of the antique square head nails.

Farmer's Dozen - Antique Square Head Nail

I took several branches, shipped to me from Washington, by my sister in law Carol, I am pretty sure my brother in law Duncan prepared them though, as they were perfectly cut in the same length and little branches neatly cut off to a nub.  I took twine and wrapped it around a few times and made a sort of hanger out of them.

Farmer's Dozen - Hanger

Then I placed each of the children's blessing dresses on the hangers and hung them in birth order.

Farmer's Dozen - Blessing Dresses

The first dress was from Brazil, my mother in law (Norma) bought it for me.  My instructions to her were, I wanted cotton, nothing shiny, short and plain.  This fit the requirements perfectly.  The 2nd dress (left to right) was an antique dress we bought the day after the baby was born!  We drove to Seattle, with my hospital bracelet still on, and found this dress at an antique store that is now out of business.  On the way home, Rick was pulled over for speeding but didn't get a ticket with the brand new baby and all!  The blessing was the following day!  (I might have been crazy).  The next 3 dresses were the triplets.  I made them from tablecloths I got at an antique warehouse sale which I had gone to while pregnant with the triplets.  I brought a chair to the sale and often sat down, as I was very pregnant.  I made the dresses after the triplets were born!  They were born in July and I think blessed the beginning of September.  They are identical dresses.  The next dress, #6, was purchased at that same antique warehouse sale.  Dress #7, my sister in law Carol found in Snohomish, WA, at a cute little store.  Then came the first boy, my good friend Karen made this little outfit for the baby, it had a cute little matching hat with it.  The next dress is probably my favorite.  We had moved from Washington to a tiny town in Idaho, so my sister in law Carol, found this antique dress and without me seeing it, she bought it and mailed it to me.  It is so fragile the back ripped when I was buttoning it.  The last outfit I ordered on the Internet.

Farmer's Dozen - Blessing Dresses First and Last

Notice how my tastes changed from the first dress to the last dress...short to long :)

Farmer's Dozen - Blessing Dresses Displayed

Why store these cute little outfits away in a box when they can become part of the decor?  The sign above them reads: "HOME is where your story begins".  I have had these outfits hanging in this spot for over 10 years and they still look great....