Baby footprint ornament

This is the last in the baby keepsake display series.  You can see the others in the series here, here, and here.

I saved the best for last because it is made for the season. It is a baby footprint ornament. Your baby's actual footprints on a glass Christmas ornament! How sweet is that?

Pretty sweet

This is what you need:

 white contact paper, large glass ornament, etching acid cream, paint brush, carbon paper, 1/4 inch vinyl letters, your baby's footprints. X-acto knife not shown because as usual I've forgotten something when I try to take my "tools you'll need" pic. I also realize I am dating myself with the carbon paper. I have had this for years so I don't even know if you can buy the stuff anymore!

I would say if you can not find carbon paper then take a pencil and color all over the back of the footprint very well. When you trace it it will transfer the graphite outline.

 Reduce the prints on a copier to about 70% for a large glass ball. If you can only find small glass balls, then I think you'd want to reduce them to 50%. It occurs to me that this would be the perfect diet if all we had to do was sit ourselves on the copier and press "reduce" by 50%!

Back to reality, take a square of contact paper about 3x5, lay a piece of carbon paper over it and top it with the reduced sized prints.
 Trace the print like above. Try to highlight the big crevices and notches, and not the little ones so much. Too hard to do with the X-acto knife

 Both little feet traced

Using the X-acto knife, cut out the footprints 

 Peel of the backing paper and lay on the glass. Once positioned well, press out the air bubbles. I used  my fingernail and just rubbed back and forth several times to adhere it well.

 Do each one of the toes the same way and this is what it will look like completed.

 Turn it over and use the vinyl letters to spell out your baby's name or initials. You can also add the birth date if you like. Yo pretty much have to eyeball the placement and start with the middle letters and work out on either side to make sure it all looks kosher. Sorry, I think that is the wrong word for this holiday post.

 Now turn it over and put it on a chopstick in a glass; you know my penchant for sophisticated tools

 Cover the glass ball entirely in the etching cream. Remember to put it on rather thickly and I also paint the footprints by starting ON the contact paper and moving out that way there is less chance that if I didn't seal the edge as well as I thought I did, I won't be brushing the cream under the lip of the contact paper. Not a worry with the letters.

 Covered like a snowball.  Let this stand for about 5 minutes. Then lift it off of the stick and cover the opening before running the whole thing under warm water! You do not want water getting inside the globe. You can't see the etching if you do until the insides dry out. Trust me.

Dry it off.

If you see some spots where it did not get covered well, just go back over those spots again with the cream, being very careful not to get the cream on the name or the footprints. Rinse again as above.

 I add a few pink beads and a bow to the top

 And now you have your baby's footprints to savor every Christmas

 See, I told you it was sweet

Always being renewed,

Linking with:  http://funkyjunkinteriors.blogspot.com/ Saturday Nite Special 112