Want to make your baby's childhood memories even more amazing and vivid? This will help parents kits for making children's volumetric casts and prints. Small palms and heels of newborns are so appetizing and beautiful that you want to remember them in the smallest detail.

The arms and legs of babies, we have already told you. Now let's talk about how you can design them in an original way.

framed

Framing casts of children's hands and feet into a frame is a classic of the genre, but this does not detract from the charm of the made souvenirs. There are single, double and triple frames on sale, with or without a photo - it all depends on your wishes. You can make a frame with your own hands. In addition, you can add a frame with a cast or print in a variety of ways.

Use rhinestones, flowers, butterflies and other decorative delights.

Add a pacifier, socks, booties or other memorabilia.

Color prints in any shades - pink, blue, gold, silver, bronze.

pendants

If, during the manufacture of casts or prints of the palms and heels, a small hole is made in them and a satin or lace ribbon is threaded into it, an elegant pendant can be obtained. This decor will look great in a child's room, in the living room or in the parent's office.

figurines

To make a cute figurine, you just need to install the resulting 3D plaster casts on the platform and cover with paint. It is important to let them dry thoroughly before applying a decorative coat of paint, as well as after that. You can apply paint in several layers, as well as use contrasting shades. Any ideas - the possibilities for creativity are unlimited. How to color? It all depends on your wishes - choose a golden or silver decor, semi-antique or, on the contrary, fashionable and bright shades?

How to decorate a figurine? Add some chic - rhinestones, beads, flowers or any other decorative elements.

Heart shaped

Plaster prints or heart-shaped casts look very graceful. To give more chic to such souvenirs, you can use dyes for gold and silver. And of course, do not forget about the commemorative signature with the name and age of a small child.

Surely all parents want to keep warm emotional memories of the childhood of their kids. But, unfortunately, even the most detailed pictures cannot always convey the quivering magical feeling that mom and dad experience while touching their child's tiny fingers. To the aid of sentimental parents in this case come casts of children's arms and legs, made with their own hands.

colorful footprints

The first thing that comes to mind to perpetuate the arms and legs of a child is to dip them in watercolor or gouache and print them on plain paper or cardboard. Yes, it's not the best original way but it is cheap and fast. To keep this sheet for a long time, you can either laminate it or put it in a beautiful stretcher.

Plasticine legs

Also, a simple option to make casts of children's arms and legs with your own hands is plasticine. The one that hardens in the air itself, or a special mixture for modeling, is best suited. The mass should be flattened in the form of a medallion and it is good to print the baby’s hand or foot in it. Be sure to make a hole before the plasticine is dry so that the “home heirloom” can be hung on a ribbon.

Salt dough print

Many of us sculpted “salty” figures in childhood, and now, having become parents, salty dough will help us capture the tiny fingers of our kids. So, how to make casts of children's arms and legs from salt dough?

We dissolve half a glass of salt in a glass of water and add about a glass of flour (more can be until the dough starts to come off your hands). We divide the mass that we have obtained into 4 identical parts and roll it out with a rolling pin into flat rounds a couple of centimeters thick and the size of a child's arm and leg. With dry clean palms and feet of the baby, we press deeply into each piece. If the cast is fuzzy or you don't like it, you can roll the dough again and repeat the procedure.

When the cast is ready, put the dough to dry for 2-3 weeks. After that, the dough can be painted with acrylic paints. As you can see, this method is quite painstaking, but the result will be durable and original casts of the child's arms and legs from salt dough.

Cast of salt dough and plaster

An even more meticulous and unusual way to get prints (casts) of children's hands and feet with your own hands is to plaster them.

To do this, we make the dough according to the recipe described above, and in the same way we form prints, and it is better to make the test 2 times more so that the print is as deep as possible (2-3 cm in depth). We take gypsum (a set for creativity from special art children's stores is best, but a construction kit is also possible). We dilute it with water in the proportion of 1 glass of gypsum to half a glass of water (it is important to add water to gypsum, and not vice versa). Add 2-3 tablespoons of PVA glue to make the resulting cast stronger. Knead everything very quickly and pour into the form with the dough.

While the mass has not frozen, it is better to wipe all the ugly edges with a cloth, otherwise they will have to be cut off later, which can damage the shape. We leave for a day to solidify a cast of a child's hand (leg) with our own hands. Gypsum usually dries quickly, but in order for everything to turn out well, it is better not to touch it for several hours. After that, the finished cast can be taken out of the test. We grind all the irregularities with sandpaper. You can decorate such prints with acrylic paint or make an interesting collage of children's photos with them. The main thing is to approach the process with imagination!

Casts of sand

Another way to get casts of children's hands and feet with your own hands is to use sand instead of dough. The principle of operation is the same. We pour sand into a deep container, moisten it with water so that it turns into a thick mass, but does not float in water and the child's print does not spread. We lower the baby’s leg or handle deeper (1-2 cm) so that an imprint remains, and take it out. Then we lower the gypsum into the resulting mold (the proportions are described above) and leave it for several hours to solidify. Then shake off the excess sand.

Casts from a ready-made set

Several ways were given here on how to make casts of children's arms and legs with your own hands, but you can also use ready-made kits for creativity. They allow you to create high-quality “handles” and “legs” without the use of improvised means, just follow the instructions. There are 2D sets (only with prints), 3D sets (full hand and foot), as well as with the possibility of making a cast of a child’s hand together with an adult hand, casts in a frame, on a stand, in an album, with an engraved plate and much more. The only drawback of this method is the high cost, but those who really know a lot about original and memorable gizmos will appreciate it.

Instead of a conclusion

Creating memorabilia, whether it be photographs or the first homemade handmade, is very important, because children grow up very quickly, and we can’t keep every detail in memory. In addition to such wonderful casts, mother's chest with small treasures can be constantly replenished - with tags from the hospital or a photo from the first ultrasound, greeting cards from relatives and friends. Photo albums, a bag of the first strand of hair, the first clothes, the first toy, the first pacifier or the first bottle, and when the baby grows up, the first drawings, the first fakes and many other amazing memorabilia.

Yes, and the child, for sure, in adulthood, will want to get acquainted again with the things that surrounded him in childhood, and even, perhaps, just a little bit to remember that wonderful carefree and happy time.

Sometimes it seems that children grow up too fast, parents do not have time to enjoy communication due to worries, and the thrill that they experience when looking at the small arms and legs of children slips away. I so want to leave something in an unreliable memory so that it reminds of a baby and demonstrates the miracle of a baby’s growth. Photographs and plaster casts of the palms help in part.

Photo Shutterstock

It is not difficult to make plaster casts, the only problem is that the kids are mobile, to force them to put their hand with the right force at the right time and not bring the baby to tears - this is really difficult. Little secrets come to the rescue.

Option one - economical

You will need: - soft plasticine, - oilcloth, - vaseline, - gypsum, - a glass of water.

Cover the table with oilcloth, otherwise you risk spending the rest of the day cleaning. From plasticine (take a couple of pieces at once), mold a cake with a thickness of at least 3 cm. It should be even and without holes. Apply a thick layer of petroleum jelly to one of the surfaces of the cake, you can even use petroleum jelly.

It is not necessary to use gypsum at all, the prints of the legs on plasticine look no less cute

In a bowl, dilute a bag of medical plaster (sold in pharmacies or by weight, or packaged in 150 grams), pour it into a glass and gradually pour in 200 ml of warm water. Stir constantly so that there are no lumps. Cover the glass with a lid.

Now send the finished plasticine to the microwave for 10-15 seconds, so it will become very soft and plastic. Check if the mass is too hot, if the baby will burn the hands.

Let the baby "drown" the handle or leg in the mass of plasticine. This must be done quickly and clearly, it is impossible for the child to have time to squeeze his fingers or twist his palm in a warm mass. Feel free to remove the pen, the plasticine should not stick, because there is a layer of Vaseline on it. For safety net, you can smear your baby's hand with a greasy baby cream.

Pour the prepared gypsum into the resulting recess and leave the mold for 2-3 hours. As soon as the plaster dries, you can remove the plasticine. Dry the gypsum for another day, now you can cut off the irregularities of the gypsum with sandpaper. Cover the cast with paint, acrylic or meat ones fit perfectly. It remains to be placed in a deep frame, you can even without glass.

Option two - home

Make molds from salt dough. Knead in a bowl 2 cups of flour with 1.5 cups of warm water, add 1 cup fine salt. For softness and smoothness of the dough, you can squeeze half a tube of baby cream into it.

Babies in their first year of life grow so fast that their parents don't even have time to look back. But you really want to capture in your memory the moments when the baby is very small. The way out of the situation is casts of arms and legs. Buying a ready-made kit for their manufacture is now not difficult. However, the price of such kits is often surprising, and the creative components included in the composition seriously limit the imagination. How realistic is it to make casts of arms and legs with your own hands, using improvised means? It turns out that the procedure is quite simple, and the materials will require quite a bit!

Plaster casts

How to make casts of arms and legs with your own hands using plaster? It is necessary to take plasticine, you can even old one, heat it up in microwave oven and form a cake to fit the imprint of the foot or palm. Then we make an imprint on the cake. If the first time does not work out, then you just need to re-heat the mass. To make the print clearer and deeper, when pressing, fix the edges of the cake so that they do not diverge to the sides.

It is convenient to use a certain form with sides for this. After obtaining an acceptable result, the cast is placed in a freezer to harden. We breed gypsum for sculptural works (can be purchased at an art store) in accordance with the instructions and additionally add a little PVA glue, pour the resulting mass into cakes with prints, leave for a while to harden. When the gypsum hardens, the resulting casts are carefully cleaned of plasticine and left for about a day for final drying. Then you should lightly walk on them with sandpaper, removing roughness and irregularities. This should be done very carefully so as not to crumble the finished product. From above it is necessary to apply paint in several layers. The most popular options are bronze or metallic silver, but the choice of color is up to you. After drying, the casts of the arms and legs (by the way, made with your own hands) are ready! They can be placed in a deep frame, mounted on a stand or otherwise fit into the interior.

Casts of alabaster

The second, no less budgetary way, with which you can make casts of arms and legs with your own hands, is to use alabaster as a base. It is necessary to mix five glasses of flour, two and a half glasses of fine salt, a tube of baby cream, mix. Gradually add water, achieving the consistency of plasticine. We make cakes of the required shape and make prints of the feet and hands. The casts are placed in the oven and dried at a low temperature until hardened. Lubricate the prints with petroleum jelly and fill with diluted alabaster, leave to dry. After complete drying, carefully remove the casts from the mold using a nail file, file, other improvised means, give them a neat shape. After that, we cover the casts with paint of the desired color and let it dry.

We looked at two of the easiest ways to make casts of arms and legs with your own hands. As you can see, it is quite simple and accessible to parents. And the possibilities of further decoration are limited only by the range of products of the art store! It can be a beautiful frame in a marine style for a boy, decorated with pebbles and shells, a flower arrangement for a girl. Or you can even make a cast of the pen every month and by the end of the year draw up an unusual panel, which will clearly show how quickly the baby grew during this period.

Our mothers circled our hands and feet in childhood, so that in the children's album there would be a memory of what we were. Already at school, we circled them ourselves and gave them to each other.

Today you can make an imprint of the child's hand and foot with every fold on the skin. And your Romeo will be able to give his Juliet in kindergarten not just a picture, but a three-dimensional copy of his pen. In our age, you won’t surprise anyone with photographs, videos are shot with a mobile phone, and casts of children’s arms and legs in 3D format are really exclusive, which cannot be bought, you can only order a master or make it yourself.

Godparents buy a gift certificate for this service so that an adult child will remember them with gratitude. Lovers (as in the "Avenue of Stars") and newlyweds order handprints on a stand with engraving. For the hero of the day, you can call a specialist at home, and organize a gift - a procedure as part of the holiday program.

Now it is fashionable to collect sculptural copies of the entire family and keep them as family heirlooms for posterity. Many people order accurate 3D sculptures of their hands.

Of course, such casts were invented a long time ago, but this service was expensive, and not everyone dared to take their crumbs across the city to the sculptor's workshop. Children grow rapidly, and I want to leave an extraordinary gift in memory of childhood. When your child becomes famous, these casts will be worth more than gold. Now many masters provide this service, but it is quite possible to manage on your own at home.

Children's casts. Method one - on the sand

Tools and materials

Step-by-step instruction

1. Sand is poured into a bowl (without tamping).
2. Carefully in the center we make an imprint of the handle or foot of the child.
3. Along the edges we lay out the selected decor for prints.
4. Dilute alabaster to the consistency of sour cream (better cold water, as it seizes very quickly).
5. In a thin stream, so as not to spoil the work, pour the solution onto the sand with a layer of 2 - 3 cm.
6. After 15 minutes, when the alabaster completely hardens, carefully remove it from the mold.
7. > We clean it from sand with a brush and cover it with paint, varnish, apply a commemorative inscription.

Materials of casts of children's hands and feet are very diverse. We got used to the sand, you can experiment with plasticine.

Method two - plasticine

Tools and materials

• children's soft plasticine;
• gypsum;
• PVA glue;
• decor material.

Step-by-step instruction

Method three - in the test

Tools and materials

• wheat flour - 1 cup;
• fine salt - half a glass;
• vegetable oil or glue - 1 tbsp;
• paints;
• decor material.

Step-by-step instruction

For grandparents, this is the most desired gift that they will keep for a lifetime.

But no one canceled grandmother's fun and simple method - if there are hypoallergenic paints in the house, just give your child paper and paints - and you will have a lot of prints in five minutes.

If you have mastered simple ways from simple improvised materials, you can purchase a set for professionals.

Children grow up very quickly, and you need to have time to catch moments that will delight you all your life!