Blast From the Past: Turkey Plate

I sat down one day and decided on all the keepsake crafts I was going to do with my grandchildren each year. On their very first Thanksgiving, I'm making these adorable little Footprint Turkey Plates! It wasn't my intention to do turkeys first BUT it is so much easier to do footprints with under 1's!!

As you have probably come to realize - I get my most recent inspiration from Pinterest. Nothing is different in this case either lol I took 3 ideas off of my Grandbabies:: First Thanksgiving board (which needs a new name cause this actually holds ideas for like the first 10 years!!). The ideas are this one, that one, and the other one. These three ideas are a cached image found here, My Rural Mommy which has several cute ideas, and SheKnows Pregnancy & Baby.

So, you see what I did there? I combined them! Feet all the way! I tried to use the hands and quickly realized trying to do baby handprints with paint or ink simply is a FAIL! Do not try it unless you are elast-a-mom with 8 tentacles - just don't do it.

I will tell you what you can do with baby handprints though - that's clay impressions or tracing! I did a little of that as well - tracing that is. But that's another post for another day.

This was a super cheap craft for me to make such a precious memory. I already had the paints so all I had to do was pick up a plate from the dollar store and wah-lah! Later, I had to spend a couple more $$ on a way to hang the plate (notice I had to rig up a display in order to take a picture ... there was simply too much glare when it was laying flat). Still well worth the price! The little man was so cute doing this - it tickled his feet to have them painted but he was such a good sport!! He was a little captivated by the whole process lol His favorite part was getting to sit on the side of the sink and playing in the water - such a ball of cuteness!! This was pretty much an all day activity between having to wait for paint to dry and naps before moving on to the next color. Experience is teaching me how to get better at getting those sweet little impressions. Now watch it be different for each baby!

So what's my plan with these little plates, you ask? I'm so glad you asked! And I really can't wait to show you - this coming November ;-) I bought some little hanging plate holders. They have springs so that it is adjustable to the size plate you have. I knew I wouldn't have enough flat "table" space to display the number of plates I will eventually have.... so I was a wee bit excited to find those little gems so I could hang them on the wall without having to attach some funky equipment that might come loose and risk breaking these precious plates that I can never replace.

God-willing, every grand child will make one of these on their first Thanksgiving! The ones so far away will be more difficult but at the same time will be all the more precious because of the distance.

The First Footprint Flower in the Garden

I saw an idea on Pinterest and wanted to use it for something a little different. The idea at Tippy Toe Crafts is for a daughter to give to her mother. (It's about 1/3 of the way down the page.) Obviously, this is not appropriate for me considering I'm the grandmother! However, when I saw these adorable little footprint flowers I had a vision of a "garden" of footprints on my bar :-D Thus begins my "collection" of grandbaby footprints for the express purpose of making flowers! I've already determined that I will make each grandchild's footprint different in scope of background and ink color ... possibly even in positioning to make different "flowers." That portion is yet to be determined, though.

The only thing missing is the sign I haven't made yet. It will say "Mimi's Garden."

Without further delay here is the first flower in the garden!

Mind not, the dying plant behind my newly bloomed flower. It is left from my mom's funeral and I just can't quite throw it out yet.