Child’s Keepsake Hand/Footprint Art DIY
Child’s Keepsake Hand/Footprint Art DIY. We show you how to make sweet flower art with your child’s hand and foot prints.
This is a minimum mess, no tears or tantrums DIY to create memory art with your littles. We can’t guarantee no mess, because children plus paint equals an experience any time.
We also share tips to get the squirmy baby hands and feet ready for print making. Yep, super challenge here! But you’re up to it, for sure to get such a charming keepsake. And you do know the grands love to have a little memory art to show their friends, too, right?
Child’s Keepsake Art: How to Get Hand and Foot Prints
Your child’s keepsake hand/footprint art will be a family treasure for years to come. We love keepsake art, and you can find another idea in this post.
But we know it’s not easy to get prints from toddlers, and almost impossible from babies.
So we’ll give some tips later on achieving success with both.
Supplies for Child’s Keepsake Art:
Child safe paint such as finger-paints or non-toxic acrylic paints (our choice for more permanence).
Several pieces of background paper for the flower art. Take into consideration the size of your child’s prints to decide what size of paper you want. Have several pieces because it might take a little practice to get it right. We use 140# watercolor paper for this.
Green card stock for stems and leaves. Or green paint if you want to paint the stems and leaves onto the background. With older children, this is a step they can complete with your help, making it even more personal.
Sturdy paper plates. Damp paper towel or hand towel you can throw away afterwards. Have one for each color of flower.
Clean up tools. For this we recommend a warm water bath or wet towel in a bowl. This one is especially important to have near at hand when you do baby’s prints. You can’t leave baby’s side to get anything during a project. The easiest might be to do this on a cleared counter top beside a handy sink full of warm water with clean dry towels nearby. Another option would be lots of baby wipes!
Patience. It can take several tries and perfect timing to get good prints. Use strategic timing, especially with toddlers and babies. Get them when they’re not hungry, upset, sleepy, too active, and so on. Yep, strategy is needed here. You don’t want to deal with little terrorists for this project. On the other hand, if you want a newborn’s prints, you can’t wait so long that they’ve grown before you get successful prints!
Partner. It’s always good to have backup when expecting disaster. Parts of this procedure will definitely benefit from a willing and intelligent partner. You know, the kind of person who can anticipate problems and forestall them while your hands are full of baby or toddler. One who knows the plan ahead of time will also be a big help. For example, go over strategy step by step and plan for all contingencies. Take this with a grain of salt. You know your child, and you know how badly you want this keepsake art. So proceed knowing that.
Now your tools and plans are in order. Here is how to proceed:
Lightly mark your background paper where you want to place the hand and foot prints. If you want precision, trace your child’s hand and foot with a pencil onto paper, cut out, and lightly trace around them on the background paper. You can erase the pencil marks if the paint doesn’t cover them.
Squirt paint on the evenly damp paper towel in the paper plates. You won’t need very much, unless you want to do several practice runs. Spread the paint around on the towel so it’s evenly coated and not too thick. Prepare each color this way. Test with your own hand on practice paper to see how much paint and/or dampness you need.
Lift the paper plate near your child’s hand, and guide his/her hand palm flat on the towel. A baby will immediately clench that little fist again, so your partner can help open it and get it in place for the background paper. Don’t expect to get all the cute little lines that they get at the hospital if they do prints. (They used to do the prints for identification, but that’s a thing of the past. Some hospitals don’t do it anymore.) Since paint is thicker than an ink pad there won’t be as much detail. Now clean the little hands before you proceed to the feet.
Repeat the above with the footprints. Oh, yes, we didn’t mention this before, but you want to do each hand and each foot, to have opposite prints of each. When you paint the foot prints, place the heel down on the paper first, then gently press the arch and toes down in the direction the flower should go.
Plop toddler in the water and let him splash a little to cheer him up after this ordeal. Make sure your partner removes the art to a safe distance first!
Baby will need a more gentle approach to cleaning, but before bath time is a good time to do this project. Especially if they love baths. Newborn? No tub baths of course, but proceed with your usual bath after getting the prints.
When children are safe and perhaps asleep, finish the keepsake project.
How to Finish your Hand/Foot Print Art
Cut leaves and stems out of colored cardstock to finish the Child’s Hand/Foot Print Keepsake Art. Match the size of the greenery to the size of your child’s prints. Adhere the stems and leaves below the “flowers.”
Insert the finished art into a frame.
Note: It’s fun to personalize and date the art. In a few years, you can show your teen how little he was at one time, and how he was at your complete mercy. (I’m joking, you know, right?)
If you have good calligraphy or hand writing, here’s where you shine. If not, print out the name and date and create a classy little label to attach to the paper or the frame.
Another option for Child’s Keepsake Flower Art:
If this project looks too daunting, we have another option for you.
Head over to our Baby Shop and allow us to make a print for you. All you do is supply the prints in black and white, which is easy with this no-mess handprint ink pad. The listing for the ink pad includes great directions on how to use it. Or maybe you’re lucky enough to have newborn prints from the hospital. We will change the prints to the colors of your choice and email a printable jpeg to you, or if your choice is a finished print, we will print and ship it to you. Or to grandma and grandpa!
