Mistle-Toes

 

My daughter was born in November and I wanted to get foot-prints done with paint as soon as possible to have as a momento of how itsy-bitsy she was in the beginning.  Looking up which paint to use, I got a bit nervous as people did not recommend doing it with paint on such a newborn.

So... then I decided I would do moulds instead and I saw some fun pictures of people making mistle-toe pictures for Christmas. 

How about Mistle-Toe Christmas tree ornaments to hang on the tree every year!

The Items I Used

™ Clay Putty from your Local Arty Crafty Store

™ Ribbon

™ Paintbrush

™ Red & Green Poster Paint

™ Craft Knife or Swiss-army Knife

™ Cardboard

™ Sticky-stuff

™ Your gorgeous Baby

Process

1.       Purchase all your materials and put newspaper down, this could get messy with the clay

2.       Put card as a base for your putty.

3.       Follow the instructions of the putty and place it on the card, flatten the putty out so that you can fit both feet or hands but make sure it is quite thick so you get a good deep print.

4.       Get helper to hold your baby over the clay and take his/her foot and press it firmly into the clay. Release and repeat with the other foot. Now your baby needs a bath... thanks helper!

 

5.       Before the clay dries, cut out around the print leaving a small edge, smooth the edge with some water.

6.       Place the two feet together at an angle with the heels on top of each other and press slightly so that they fit into each other but not so hard that they stick together. Then take the back end of your paint brush and push it through a point on the heels. Leaving the hole where your ribbon will go through.

7.       Take the feet apart and leave to dry. Tick tock

8.       Whilst they are drying draw three circles on some card and paint red and cut out, these will be the little berries.

9.       When the feet are dry paint them green, and when the paint is green stick them together with sticky stuff and loop the ribbon through them and tie into a bow.

10.   Stick the card berries onto the feet, you can embellish these with red diamante stickers for more Christmas Bling.

Mistakes I made & Learned From

v  Get a friend or partner to help you, trying to manoeuvre a small baby and push their feet into clay is not easy and leads to tears from you and your little sweetheart. It doesn’t pay to be impatient for someone to come home from work.

v  Make more than one, in case you break one.

I’m super stoked with how these turned out! They will go up on our tree every year and will remind us that once she was a tiny little lady. Watch this space for what I do with the unpainted hand and foot moulds... I am still playing with ideas for displaying these and protecting them.