Baby Canvas Footprint

I bought this canvas from Hobby Lobby. It was about $7 for a 2 pack (that is the price here, it might be different in your area). 

I also bought these rollers. 

This paint. 

That says "Sargent Art", sorry for the price tag

These paint brushes. 

And these stencils. 

The last tool you need is a baby and 12 months! You can pick any months that you want. I chose to measure my daughter's footprints at 4 months, 8 months and 16 months (I doubled each month) to show the growth. O, my 16 month old daughter, is pretty small for her age so her feet didn't grow too much but I can still see it a little bit. You could even do new born, one year and two year if you want to see major growth. 

So once you decide what you want, paint the canvas a solid color with a roller. I picked pink. It needed more than one coat once it dried. I'm sure there are other paints out there that would have done it in one coat but I like these. I chose the paint I did because once the canvas is painted, if you mess up (or get a foot slip), you can easily wipe the wet paint away with a damp paper towel. But have the paper towel handy, it dries pretty quick. So I painted it one night, let it dry and then painted it again the next night. 

Once you're ready, you need to grab a baby. And a helper! I had my husband, Carson, hold O. He had her sit on his knee and he held her foot. I put a little paint on some cardboard and rolled my roller in it. Then I rolled the roller over her foot. He held her foot out straight and I brought the canvas to her. I did learn that the hard way! At first I had the canvas on the ground and brought her to the canvas but that just resulted in kicking and a smudged foot print! But that was easily wiped away. Make sure you have something to wipe the paint off your baby's foot, otherwise you could get paint everywhere if they escape! 

It was that easy! We repeated that over the next 12 months and voila! Beautiful baby footprints captured forever! I grabbed a wet paper towel, my stencils and painted one letter at a time. In between each letter, I wiped off the stencil with the paper towel so it wouldn't transfer paint when I moved it (little bits of paint get on the underneath side when you paint). I also waited for each letter to dry so I wouldn't smear it, it takes only a minute or two. So to make it go faster, I started with "O" at the bottom, while that was drying I moved up to "4", while that was drying painted the "8" and then the "1" in 16 and I repeated that pattern until I filled in everything.

Tips: 
Don't get too much paint on the brush with the stencils, it will make it lump up on the letters. Better to have a little bit of paint and paint over it several times than have too much paint that clumps.

Don't be intimidated by how long it takes. They are only babies for a little while and really it doesn't take that much active time. To paint the feet and clean them takes less than 5 minutes. The stenciling part took me about 20 minutes, but you can do that any time, it's only the foot part that is time sensitive.

Older is better. It was easier doing the 16 month foot than the 4 month foot. Maybe I had just gotten better but babies move, a lot. My 4 month old squirmed a lot and curled her toes a bunch. My toddler was just kind of staring at what I was doing and was kind of mesmerized, she didn't move a muscle because she was interested in what I was doing.

Pick the right time. Make sure your baby is in a good mood, not grumpy or hungry. 

Have fun! You're making memories with your baby, what could be more fun than that!

If you have any other tips, be sure to let me know!