When she was pregnant, Veselka Bulkan started to channel her creative energy and talents as an embroidery artist into something to remember this season of her life: her daughter's ultrasound photo [1], embroidered onto black fabric, which she also used as a way to announce her pregnancy to her followers on her Instagram account, @catchtheinspiration [2]. The gorgeous and realistic embroidery sparked an influx of requests from her followers who also had their child's ultrasound photo [3] just lying around, and she now has a list of people waiting to commission her for their own unique piece of art.
When we first connected with her, Veselka was working while caring for her newborn to get the growing orders ready for her customers — which can each take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month or more and cost $300 apiece. "My husband and I never thought that the waiting list would be so long in the end," Veselka told POPSUGAR. "I have been able to do only a few up to now but am speeding up."
As for what goes into creating these stunning, time-consuming crafts, there's a surprising amount. Because ultrasound photos aren't always consistent, and the baby can really be in any position during the mom's sonogram appointment, Veselka can only work with certain ultrasounds successfully.
"The posture of the baby is a factor. Some photos are close up to the face, some are not. The contours on the head are pretty different in each in terms of abstraction of details. The textures of the scan and the ratio of black and white areas are also a difficulty factor," she said. "Some of the ultrasounds are so blurred and abstract. Their textures are not so clear so that the result would not be good at all. Three-dimensional ultrasounds are also not applicable."
As of now, Veselka is working through a backlog of orders, but if you'd like to try to hop on Veselka's next waiting list to have a custom keepsake of your own, you can send her an email [4] with your own ultrasound photo attached so she can determine if it's viable for an embroidery.
