footprint Christmas ornaments

[llwr]

I'd like to make some clay or plaster footprint ornaments and am looking for advice. DD2 will be about 2 months old when I'll be doing them. I used clay a couple of years ago with DD1, but it was really too firm; I don't think I could get a tiny baby's foot pressed in hard enough. I also read somewhere that regular plaster of paris wasn't safe for skin. I want to do quite a few, so buying a special kit (most of them are more like plaques than ornaments anyway) for each one wouldn't be very economical. Any recommendations?
Thanks!

[Noelle C.]

If someone can answer this, then my Christmas gift dilemma will be solved!

[lifeguard]

What about salt dough or homemade playdough & let it dry? It would pliable enough to imprint & definitely non-toxic.

I have a kit someone gave us for ds' footprint that I did & you can barely see his footprint 'cause the clay was so hard.

[SunshineJ]

YES!! I know this one!! We did it with each child and it was insanely easy AND inexpensive! Go to the craft section and buy some stuff by Crayola called Model Magic. It's a lightweight playdoh type stuff that's not nearly as dense and much more elastic feeling. It works fantastic for things like this. What I did was take a decent sized lid to use as a circle base and "cut out" circles with it. I then took a straw and poked a hole at the top of each circle for hanging, and made a footprint impression (by far the most difficult part!). I didn't care for the colors they had, so I went with white and while they were still damp I brushed light blue eye shadow on DS's and light pink on DD's using a large make-up brush. Let them dry overnight and they're finished. They're also very, very lightweight when dry so good for ornaments.

[DiannaK]

subbing for gift ideas -- thanks!