Family Tree

For our first wedding anniversary I made my husband a family tree from a design I saw at Red Envelope.  That was back in May!  Now, we just finally got around to finishing all the names.  Here it is proudly displayed in our bedroom:

I picked out some textured scrapbook paper in greens and brown, then cut out a nice symmetrical tree shape with branches for each family member.  I filled in the tree trunk with little paper scraps to make it look like real tree bark and then “carved” our wedding date under a heart in the center.  Then I cut out 64 leaves-- 15 for each side of the tree plus two bigger ones for the family name at the top in each of two colors, dark and light green.  The hard part was filling in the names.  My grandfather has always been an avid genealogist, so I didn’t have to look far for my great grandparents’ names.  Michael’s parents provided most of his and the remaining few he found online with ancestry.com and from immigration records! :)  It was a very interesting process and a nice reminder of where we came from. 

I love seeing on paper a tangible representation of our family… and one day we can add our children’s names to the tree, too.  Happy First Anniversary, Michael!