It's Caleb's first Christmas. Everyone knows that Baby's First Christmas is one of the big hallmark milestones of a baby's first year. Even though he has no idea what Christmas is, there is still a pressure to make it memorable. Enter Pinterest, the go-to gallery of DIY memory making ideas. In my quest for fun, relatively easy ways to make this holiday memorable for years to come, I found this inspiration...
Looks easy enough, right. A little bitty handprint or footprint on an ornament. Simple. Piece of cake. How hard can this be? As I imagine the finished product, my mind paints a picture of me hanging this ornament on our tree (we will have a tree by then) and reminiscing of how sweet and tiny his little hands once were..... (everyone say awwwwww). Ok, back to reality.
It's 2 days before Christmas and we finally find time to gather the materials needed to make our ornament. Because we know it is going to be absolutely adorable and FLAWLESS, we decided to buy multiple ornaments to give to family as Christmas gifts. What grandparents wouldn't want baby keepsakes? It's so brilliant that I can hardly wait to see the finished product.
Let's start.
This was our before/set up picture. I'm no newbie to pinterest projects so I'm all too familiar with the dreaded pintrosity (a pinterest project gone wrong). I love visiting pintrosity.com and belly laughing at EVERYONE ELSE'S pinterest mishaps. In an effort to avoid a pinstrosity of my own, I did my research on making handprint ornaments. I learned, what I thought at the time, was the secret hint to a handprint masterpiece -- put the print on a paper towel and then transfering the print from the paper towel to the ornament. Knowing that would be our approach, we set up the table. We even did a few "dry runs" to make sure we knew who was doing what steps (yes, you need 2 people to complete this!) I'm feeling even more confident now. So, without further adieu, here is our first print...
Stop laughing!!! Yes, that's a hand...well, actually, it started as a print and quickly turned into a clenched fist that I tried to wrestle back into a print. We knew keeping his hand spread would be a huge challenge as his favorite way to hold his hand is clenched in a fist, inserted into his mouth. Soooo, we had already decided that if we couldn't unclench his hand, we would do a footprint instead. A footprint sounded much easier anyway. We would have his body weight to help make the print and we wouldn't have to worry about spreading his toes or unclenching his foot. Keeping with the approach of placing the print on the paper towel first and then transferring it onto the ornament, this is our first footprint attempt:
Not too bad. Here is how it transferred to the ornament:
Whhaaaaaaaaaaat happened?! I feel betrayed!! The woman on the blog made it sound like transferring the print was easy peasy. Not so much, lady!!! In between laughing fits, I decided to go rouge and just put the print directly on the ornament.
Ok, that worked so much better, but still doesn't look like the original pin. I'm not finished trying yet - I still have a few more takes in me. Being all about continuous improvement, we decided the paint wasn't adhering to the ornament so we moved on to baby safe ink. Unfortunately, all I had was black, but I was determined to make it work! Take 3, 4, 5...
Then, we realized that the baby safe ink would never completely dry onto the ornament. So, as long as no one ever touches the ornament, it should be fine!
The original pin vs. our footprint.
Sigh. Well, we did our best to create a baby's first Christmas handprint ornament, but we sure did come up short! We had a good time and we laughed hysterically at our mishap(s). While we won't be keeping the actual ornaments, I'm sure we will keep the ornaments alive in our memories for years to come!
While the ink/paint attempt was a fail, I had another handprint keepsake kit that uses a clay-like substance to make a mold of the print. We made a few handprints and footprints and are waiting for them to dry. I'm still hopeful that we will end up with something good from that experiment. If not, you'll probably see a blog with that pinstrosity soon. :) Merry Christmas everyone!!
