Hello dear readers, finally I am ripe for a new article!
A year and a half has passed since the last inspiration!
A lot of new things have happened in my life, the most important thing is that my son, Leonid, my second child, was born (in January 2014)!
He is now 6.5 months old. And I again started a business with casts!

How to make a mold of the arms and legs with your own hands from plaster? We answer: "Very simple!"

There are tons of kits for making them in stores, and there are a lot of different tips on the Internet on how to make them!

In 2011, 3 years ago, when I was making casts of Danochka's arms and legs, I first bought a ready-made set. I did everything according to the instructions. She diluted the mixture, put the sleeping child’s hand into a plate, and my Danulya took it and woke up and knocked over all this liquid on me! While I was washing, the second jar of gel dried up. Conclusion: I threw money away!

Then I got into my favorite Internet, and saw a lot of recipes for making children's casts from gypsum.

I want to tell you the simplest and easiest way to make casts of your favorite arms and legs, which I liked the most!

To make children's casts you will need:


For test:
- half a glass of water,
- two tablespoons of sunflower oil,
(oil is needed to make the dough more elastic)
- one glass of flour,
- one glass of salt
(preferably fine, salt is needed so that the dough is “obedient”, so that it keeps its shape better)

The volume of my glass is 150 milliliters.

To make the casts themselves:
- gypsum,
- water.

Where can I get plaster for making children's casts?

1. You can buy on the construction market.
2. You can buy any children's kit for creativity, for example, the Sculptor kit.
I have this set since 2011 :-)

First we make the dough.
In a bowl, mix salt and flour, pour in oil and water, mix everything.
The dough should be tight! If the dough is runny, add more flour.
Divide the dough in half and roll it out with your hands.
It is necessary to get two small round, but thick (2-3 cm) cakes, so that the cast is more voluminous.


We take a little one, make prints of the legs and handles!

For the first time with Dana, I made the right arm and the left leg.
The second time with Leonid, I made the right arm and right leg.
It is better to do as the first time, for example, the left arm and right leg or vice versa.
I think it looks so beautiful!

Next, take a disposable glass, pour water, pour gypsum and mix everything.
I don’t specifically write the proportions of water and gypsum, since I made liquid gypsum “by eye”.
The consistency should be like sour cream or kefir.

We pour liquid plaster into our children's prints, and wait.


When the plaster has hardened, remove the dough and our casts are ready!


The rest of the dough is easily removed with ordinary water.

It remains to decorate them!

You can color the casts as you like, I took pink and silver nail polish!
First, she painted the children's casts with pink, and then with silver varnish.
Here's what happened.


Then I found a beautiful frame on the Internet, added a photo of the child and signed the age - I printed the photo!
I bought a regular photo frame, put a photo, a pregnancy test, a bracelet and a tag from the hospital!
I glued the finished children's casts, on double-sided tape, on glass!

So a beautiful frame with children's casts is ready for a long memory!

You can add baby's first clothes, a pacifier, and more.

For comparison, I post a photo of my first frame with casts!


Now we have this beauty at home:


Children's casts can be made at any age, but to make it easier to attach them, it is better when they are still tiny.
The sooner you make casts, the easier it is to attach them to the photo frame!

Good luck with your creations!

P.S. : The only thing I didn't understand is how to remove air bubbles from plaster?
Small dots appear on the casts.
Maybe you need to stir longer?

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 crush ready 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 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.

Capture memorable moments of your child's childhood different ways: photographs, first drawings, growth scale, joint crafts, etc. One of the most popular ways to save good memories- making casts of the baby's arms and legs. And the basis for them can be made by hand.

Believe me, your child will be pleased to look at his hands and feet in the future. Yes, and you will experience warm feelings, looking at this beauty. Many now make prints to order and keep them for years. But if you make the material for the impressions yourself, the result will not change at all.

And making stuff is easy. Roughly speaking, we need cool salty dough.

What will we need?

• flour (1 cup)
• salt (1 cup)
• warm water (1/2 cup)
• paints
• coating varnish

How to make casts of children's hands and feet?

Mix flour and salt and carefully add water. The dough should not stick to your hands. If it still sticks, add a little more flour.

We roll out the base and give it the desired shape (circle, square, star, etc.). If you have something to cut out, you can make the base of an unusual shape.

Now we leave an imprint of a hand or foot in the center. With a toothpick, you can write the name and year.

We send the product to the oven, heated to 100 degrees, and leave to bake for 3 hours. If the layer is very thin, you can lower the temperature to 80 degrees. When the time is up, we take out the craft and leave it to “rest” for the night.

The next day we paint the cast with any paints. When the paints dry, we fix them with varnish (preferably in 2-3 layers) so that the product will never deteriorate.

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 century, 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 you can’t buy, 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 (preferably with 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!

Little kids grow up so fast that you can't keep up with them. Here he turned over for the first time, smiled, said "mom", went ... got married. And so I want to remember every pleasant moment of this lovely childhood life, to capture in my memory small hands and feet. Today, newfangled trends come to the aid of young mothers, thanks to which you can make casts of the arms and legs of their little children. Let's look at several ways to "freeze the moment" and capture the tiny, lovely limbs of a child.

On the Internet, there are a lot of offers of kits for creativity, with which you can make prints of the arms and legs of your baby with every prominent crease on the palm and foot. After all, you must admit that making a collage of photos, arms and legs in 3D format is an exclusive art, looking at which you will light up with a smile every time.

It is very popular today to bring such gifts to christenings or buy a certificate for this service as a gift. After all, when the godson grows up, he will surely remember his godparents with gratitude. What else you can give to the godson read in the article:. Parents can also order handprints on a stand in the style of "Avenue of Stars" in Hollywood. And you can make casts of arms and legs yourself, but how? See below.

How to prepare a crumb-model for "work"?

It is best to do the hand and foot molding work when the little model is calm. Pick a moment. It can be a dream or watching your favorite cartoons. You can find cartoons by clicking on the link:. There are sleepy children with whom you can do anything in this state. There is an interesting article about the child's sleep: "Does the child sleep poorly? We are looking for possible causes and find a solution to this problem."

If you decide to carry out work on making a cast while the child is awake, then be sure to make sure that the crumbs have a good mood, that they are not hungry and joyful.
Does the baby wiggle his fingers slightly during the impression? It does not matter, this will not spoil the final result, since the mass will better fall into all the folds and the handle or leg will be more prominent. In this case, the main thing is calmness, nocturnal holding will not give the desired result.

How to make casts of arms and legs out of sand?

The method is quite simple and does not require any special "troubles". Any mother will cope with such a task, even if she is completely unfamiliar with the skill of creating a sculpture. Such a cast can be made decorated, then in addition to the tools and materials below, decorative elements are needed, which can be shells, chains, buttons or small toys.

Required accessories

To work on the cast you will need:

• capacity, a round-shaped cookie tin is great for this idea;
• sand, it is desirable that it be fine;
• alabaster, it is easy to buy it on the construction market (shop);
• brush, common for painting radiators.

Stages of work

1. Pour fine sand into the selected container, level it. It should not be over-tamped.

2. In the center of the prepared sand, make an imprint from the hand or foot of your child. If you want to make a decorated cast, then make decorations around the print from pre-prepared items.

3. Now you need to do alabaster. Do not forget that this material hardens very quickly, so you need to work quickly. Powder bred plain water. The mass that is necessary for work should be like sour cream.

4. After the alabaster is diluted, pour it into a container in a small stream, so as not to spoil the sand form. The thickness of the alabaster above the sand should be 2–4 cm.

5. Leave the container for at least 20 minutes. It is desirable longer, but if "unbearable", then you can get it.

6. Carefully take out the cast and use a brush to clean off the grains of sand. Next, act as your imagination tells you: paint, decorate, decorate with drawings, write inscriptions.

How to make casts of plasticine arms and legs?

Such material as plasticine is familiar to us since childhood. After all, each of us began to create our first "sculptures" from it in kindergarten. If you are going to make casts of your child's arms and legs from plasticine, then you need to remember the skills gained in kindergarten.

Required accessories

For work, the following materials should be prepared:

• plasticine, today the choice of such material is quite wide, children's soft is best;
• ordinary PVA glue (clerical);
• gypsum, it can be different: for decoration, construction, medical. You can take any;
• if you want to decorate the cast, then the decor elements.

Step-by-step instruction

1. In order for the print to be of high quality plasticine, it is necessary to knead it well until soft.

2. We make an imprint of a handle or a leg with a depth of at least 1.5 cm. If you want, you can make decorative recesses.

3. We hide the resulting print in the freezer to set the contours.

4. Prepare plaster. The standard proportion suggests 1 cup of powder + 0.5 cups cold water. Do not forget that the gypsum does not take lumps of water should be poured into the gypsum, and not vice versa. Pour a small amount of PVA glue into the resulting mixture.

5. Remove the impression from the freezer and fill all the cavities with plaster.

6. Leave the impression for hardening for 12-18 hours.

7. Plasticine is removed quite easily if you hold it over warm air (a battery, a boiling kettle) for several minutes.

8. The resulting cast is polished and decorated according to your desire.

How to make casts of arms and legs from salt dough?

Hand and foot molds made from salt dough are the easiest way to capture baby prints. But it should be remembered that the dough is a short-lived product and varnish applied on top in several layers will help to preserve the original appearance of the cast.

Required accessories

To prepare the dough for work, you must have:

• wheat flour;
• salt, it is better to choose fine;
• water.

Staged implementation

1. Prepare the dough, it must be elastic. To do this, mix one glass of flour with the same amount of fine salt. In the resulting mixture, twist half a glass of water, knead the dough. If you see that there is not enough water, then add a little.

2. From the resulting dough, roll out a cake of 3–5 cm. You can give the mold a different shape.

3. Push the handle or leg of the child on the cake. This material is good because if the desired result does not come out the first time, you can roll out the dough in a new way.

4. Around the print, you can write inscriptions, draw patterns or beautiful drawings.

5. Place the impression with the imprint in a hot oven for two hours. The optimum temperature for drying the dough should be 100-120 degrees. Depending on the thickness of the cake depends on the baking time.

6. After baking (drying) the cast of the handle or leg, let it lie down for a day and only then apply a decorative coating (lacquer, paint, etc.), decorate with drawings and inscriptions.

Impression design options

Making a mold of the handle and leg is half the battle. It still needs to be beautifully decorated. In addition to making a cast, it also needs to be beautifully designed. There are many design options, because it all depends on your imagination. Here are some design options:

1. In the form of a figurine. To do this, cover the resulting cast with silver or bronze spray paint and pile it on the base. Sign the base and put a date and get a miniature figurine.

2. Photo frame with a cast. Glue a photo of your child and a cast of an arm and leg into a regular photo frame. In addition to these things, "under the glass" you can put a tag from the hospital, a pacifier and other paraphernalia of a newborn.

3. In the form of a pendant. Make a hole while making. After the casts of the arms and legs have hardened, thread a beautiful ribbon through this hole and hang it on the wall in the children's room. And you can read about the design of a room for a newborn in the article:.