Tips for Better Baby Footprint Art: 11 tips to help get the best baby footprints for your footprint art!
I LOVE Halloween. I love dressing up, I love the candy, I love the monsters, I love the pumpkins. It’s very nearly my favorite holiday.
Last year when I was pregnant I went over to one of my friends’ houses and she was doing footprint crafts with her kids for Halloween to send to her family. I knew instantly that next year when I had my own little baby it was going to happen. I also knew that I was going to have to find a way to do it with a baby. I mean it’s one thing to put paint on a five-year-old’s foot, and another to try and do it to a seven-month-old. So while I was making my very first piece of keepsake art for Little J, I also was thinking of how to do it in as simple a way as possible in order to make the best footprints I could. So, now that I have gone through this once, I am going to pass on my knowledge to you so you can make even better baby footprint art.
1. Make baby happy first. In my case, this meant feeding Little J, giving him a clean diaper, and doing this right after he had woken up from a nap. If your baby isn’t happy then they aren’t going to cooperate, and you are going to have a whole mess of trouble. Quite literally.
2. Set everything up. Make sure you have all of your materials that you need, ready to go, before you start. You need a baby (obviously), non-toxic paints, something to paint with, paper, wipes (just in case), and paper plates to put the paint on. You want to make sure everything is there so that mid-footprint stamping you don’t have to run to the other room to grab something. Bad idea.
3. Strip baby down to his diaper. And keep him that way for the whole process. Somehow, baby will get paint on the side of his stomach, his arms, and the backs of his legs. You want to make clean-up as easy as possible.
4. Stamp the footprints assembly-line style. I lined up all the papers in a row so I could just scoot down the row and stamp Little J’s foot. It worked great, and that way I didn’t have to move around very much while my son had paint on his foot.
5. Wear an apron. You will also get paint everywhere. I wore an apron and somehow I still got it on my chest, the back of my arm, and my wrist. You don’t want to make a bigger mess than you need to, and an apron is a good solution. Don’t have an apron? Wear an old T-shirt and pants you don’t care about.
6. Don’t do a ton of footprints. I decided I was going to be nice and make footprints for all of Little J’s grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, and for us. So I made 8 pages total of footprints. That meant stamping Little J’s foot 8 times for each color, or 32 times total. It’s not that it took a long time, it’s just that he wasn’t really having a ton of fun getting his foot stamped that many times.
7. Re-paint your baby’s foot every two stamps. You want to make sure that the paint will show up on the paper, and if you don’t have enough paint on your baby’s foot, you may be forced to redo some of the footprints, which is hard and can look bad if your baby is squirmy. So avoid that and just re-paint the foot every two stamps.
8. Wash baby’s feet in between colors, and give your baby breaks. Depending on how squirmy your baby is, you will get paint on both feet. And instead of doing one color on one foot and another color on the other foot at the same time, wash your baby’s feet in between and then do the next one. It will take longer, but it is way easier. Also give your baby a break in-between footprints. My son didn’t particularly enjoy being held the way I held him to stamp his foot, so letting him have breaks in-between stamps kept him happy.
9. Choose paper colors wisely. If you are going to have yellow paint, do not choose yellow paper. It will not show up very well. This should be obvious, but for some people (me) it is not. I thought it would be okay since the shades are different, but it still was hard to see. So maybe do some tests on the paper first, or just be smart and don’t do the same colors as your paint.
10. Do the easy stamps first. If you have footprints that are going to be multiple colors, work up to them. You don’t want to try and do them first and then discover that you don’t know what you are doing. If you do the single-color footprints first, you will get the hang of stamping your baby’s foot and your colors won’t smudge together.
11. Choose washable paint, or be really careful. I was foolish and put Little J’s clothes back on before we did the thumbprint eyes, and it ended up bad because somehow we got a tiny bit of paint on his little baby jeans. And you know what? Even though I washed them right after it happened, you can still see a little bit of yellow on the bottom of one pant leg. And yes, I am very sad about it because baby jeans are the cutest. So choose washable paint, or just keep the clothes far away from the paints.
Follow those tips and you should get some adorable, very clean-looking baby footprints that you can save for yourself and send to your family. Good luck, and have fun!
Our Pinteresting Family says
This is a great post. I appreciate you sharing your tips. I’m hoping to do a project as soon as my boys arrive sometime this month. 🙂
Chelsea J says
How exciting! It’ll be even easier to do it with them since they’ll be sleeping most of the time! Congrats 🙂
Clare says
Another top tip I got from a kindergarten teacher friend is to mix a little dish soap in with the paint before painting get their hands / feet. It makes it much easier to wash off them
Chelsea Johnson says
I hadn’t heard of that before! Thanks for sharing!
Lisa says
Great tips! I did these for about the first 2 years and now I think it’s getting to be a little harder since my son can run away! I used to do them in the bathtub while he was sitting in his infant tub so he could get washed right away!
Chelsea J says
That’s a great idea! Too bad my son is too big for his now! You’ll have to entice him with some type of reward 🙂
jessica | piganddac says
This was so helpful! I love doing footprints and so I know all the mishaps that can happen. I will definitely be taking your advice next time I do these, I love the assembly line idea, and so true about the paint & paper color, I made the same mistake. You picked great color combos, they turned out so cute!
Chelsea J says
Thanks! His grandparents and aunts and uncles all loved them, so I am pretty satisfied! Having an assembly line was definitely one of my better plans!
Poe Kitten says
Great advice! I’ve been thinking that I might try this with my 15 month old but I’m not sure I want to wrestle with her:)
Stopping by from The Blogger’s Digest:)
Chelsea says
Thanks! Try enticing her with treats, or maybe doing one character footprint a day. Good luck! They turn out cute even if they are a little smudged 🙂
Britni says
Your little boy is so cute. Wish you lived closer so we could be real life friends because I think our little boys could be great buddies. I really need to do footprints for my little boy and these are great tips!
Britni @ Play. Party. Pin.
Chelsea says
That would be so fun! I hope you get to do them because they really are so fun (and family members who live far away LOVE them!)
Doofy Dizee says
These came out great!!! My oldest son and I were just talking about doing something similar.
I am a huge fan of kiddie hand print/foot print art. I have both my boys’ handprints tattooed on my feet (well, one on each foot) and my husband has their footprints tattooed on his arms.
Love it!
Chelsea says
Aw that’s such a precious tattoo idea! They really are fun to make. I plan on keeping mine forever! I hope you get to try them!
Jenn says
I tried to do this for Greg for Valentine’s day. It was such a mess! I got down to my last 2 pieces of cardstock and ended up doing that thing where you use your fist and fingers to make a baby footprint! It will be one of those things I tell him when she goes to college. Haha
Chelsea says
Oh no! Maybe when she is a little bigger she’ll want to cooperate more!
Jelli B. says
What great tips! When both my babies were just a week or so old, my husband and I teamed up to try to get good hand and foot prints stamped out on paper. It took a few tries to get unsmudged baby foot goodness, but I’m sure we weren’t nearly as prepared as you are. This Christmas, when I’m sure we’ll be back at it again, I’ll be checking out this post!
Chelsea says
Yeah, you really have to prepare, especially when your baby is squirmy! I hope this helps next time!!
Miranda Winslett says
As a daycare teacher who is constantly making foot print art it seems, I LOVE these tips. I featured you at DIY Weekend this week so be sure to check it out!
http://mrandmrswinslett.blogspot.com/2013/10/diy-weekend-1017.html
Chelsea says
Thanks Miranda! That’s awesome! I hope these tips help at your daycare!
Alice Emma Thompson says
Fab tips – the pictures look lovely, Alice @ Mums Make Lists
Chelsea J says
Thanks! It sure was fun to do!
Dara says
Is it best to hold baby and do it or leave baby seated in a bumbo?
Chelsea Johnson says
When I did it I kept him in the bumbo until I had everything ready. Then I held him when I put the paint on his feet and stamped them on the paper. Hope that makes sense!
Unknown says
What brand of paint did you use? I tried doing candy corn with some kids paint that I had on hand a few weeks ago, and the results were nowhere near as good as yours (the colors seemed to soak right into the paper). Love the tips, and can’t wait to try some Christmas cards!
Chelsea Johnson says
I used Apple Barrel paint. Did you use construction paper, or regular printer paper? That could’ve affected it, too. Good luck with your Christmas cards!
Jen H says
I work at a daycare and we put the baby in a high chair and have the paper we are going to paint on on a clipboard. Hold baby’s foot at the ankle with one hand press on paper holding the clipboard from underneath. Nice and easy, grab a wipe and you’re done
Chelsea Johnson says
That’s a great idea, too! How fun that you make them at daycare!!
Ann says
If using a DSLR, what manual settings do you recommend? We will need to do indoors unfortunately due to crappy weather here in Ohio…
Chelsea Johnson says
I’m not sure 🙂 Maybe try looking for tips on a photography blog?