Christmas footprints!

With Christmas just around the corner I am excited to share with you Baby E's first Christmas footprints which I have painted and framed, ready to give out to my parents and Daddys's parents! What do you think?

As I'm sure you're all aware I am a big lover of Hobbycraft and as soon as I step foot in the shop my little wheels start to turn and I begin to think of the next project that I want to start! 

Back in October I had the idea that I would give out something meaningful and that the grandparents can keep for years to come and look back on, so a little look though Pinterest and I got this idea! 

I already had some air drying clay from previous crafting times so I rolled some out and while Baby E was jumping like a mad man in his Jumperoo I managed to get imprints of his tootsies! 

He wasn't bothered that I was pressing his feet into the clay, in fact he loved it! I clapped everytime we did one which made him excited to do more! 

I cut around them to make them a bit neater and then left them out to dry for a good week, it takes a couple of days to dry but I was in no rush to get them done ASAP! 

One evening I took the three clay prints (one for both sets of grandparents and one for our house!) and an emery board and files the edges to make it look more neater and rounder. This was pretty messy so I would advise doing this either at the table or with lots of newspaper around! I didn't, and was hoovering at some silly time at night! 

I found this really easy and after doing them all they instantly looked far better than before.

I got set to paint them, I painted a base coat of red and green. The clay absorbed most of the paint so I went over it a couple of times. I just had kids paints so perhaps if you were to use good quality you wouldn't need so many coats. 

I left this for a couple of days for it fully set. 

I bought some glitter glue from Hobbycraft for the Christmas Handprints so with the glue and a paintbrush I set to work, carefully getting the glitter in every crease! I did one rough coat and left to dry over night and then did a second coat, the second coat I made sure that the glitter was bold and thick. This took a bit longer to dry as I applied a lot of glitter glue! 

The foot prints stayed like this for a week or so, while I searched for box frames! Which proved very hard to find for a reasonable price! Again I came back to Hobbycraft and got 3 frames for £8 each. 

Ideally I wanted 3 white frames but sadly the White frames were discontinued and I only got one! The black frames are fine though! 

While there I also got black glitter lettering. I needed 4 packets as we have a lot of T's!! Haha! 

I used sticky back tape that you can use to hold photo frames onto a wall - so I thought it would be fine for the clay! 

Once home I was so excited to get to work and finish my christmas project! 

And this was the result... What do you think? 

I absolutely love them! And I cannot wait to see the look on the grandparents faces when they open them on Christmas Day!