Sometimes Less is More

I wanted to get Charlie's godparents gifts for agreeing to play such major roles in Charlie's life.  I picked Sarah's gift from Etsy.  It's a locket shaped like a Compass.  The seller calls it the "Guidance" locket which was perfect for the occasion.  Plus, Sarah loves compasses so it worked out perfectly.

Finding a gift for Matt proved a little more difficult.  If you know anything about Matt, you know he's very into hunting.  He often jokes around about how he's going to take Charlie out for his first hunt.  That got me thinking...what if I set up a photo shoot involving Charlie, a paper gun, and some knitted puppets that could double as his "game"?  I googled "shotguns" and quickly sketched a picture from one of the images.  Next, I drew some trees (not my best) and located a green blanket to serve as the grass and a blue blanket to serve as the sky.  And no hunt is complete without animals. So I grabbed some puppets, a rabbit, a rooster, and a moose for the shoot.  I struggled to come up with an appropriate outfit for Charlie.  I had no camouflage onesie.  FAIL.  I thought about creating an orange vest out of construction paper, but yeah that's part not of my bag o tricks.  Instead I opted to strip him down to his diaper.  And I remembered some moose boots given to him by my brother and his fiance, perfection!  A hunter was born!  I delicately set up my shoot.  The trees framed the scene and I dispersed the animals accordingly.  All that was left was to place my baby in the center, and we're set.  Unfortunately, babies are not professional models.  I know, shocker!  I tried to provide direction, but Charlie had his own ideas.  The poor puppets were kicked left and right and my paper trees didn't stand a chance.  By the time I got the paper gun in his arms, he'd already knocked over the animals and crumpled my perfect white clouds.  Babies.  Sheesh.

The moose is already down and the paper gun is about is about to get demolished.

Now the tree is about to get it.  The rooster sees this as an opportunity to get the heck out of dodge.

I tried simplifying the hunt.  The moose is dead and Charlie has gas.

My next brilliant idea was to have Charlie hold his "kill" ie the rabbit puppet.  Charlie wanted nothing to do with that rabbit.

Sometimes less is more:-)  This is the picture we ended up giving Matt.  He loved it.  SUCCESS!