What do you get when you mix an artist with a new mother? DIY Christmas presents, of course! (At least for the Grandmothers!) We've been so enjoying our little girl, and as most of her grandparents are far away, I wanted to give a gift with her footprints. But most of the footprint art I found was so hokey! Until I ran across THIS craft, which I thought looked so much more elegant. Here's what I did! Gather your supplies: Ceramic Paint

Plates (I bought mine for $1 each at the dollar store, which might be why I had an issue later on) Paint Brushes

Wet Wipes Baby!

I was doing 4 plates, so I poured paint onto my plastic palette/plate to dip my brush in. If you're only doing one or two, you might as well just dip your brush into the bottle and save a little cleanup. Firmly hold baby's foot, and paint the bottom liberally. Don't let it be too thick or goopy, you want the individual toes and lines to print clearly!

I did one foot at a time, reapplying paint onto the foot after each stamping. Once I finished with one foot, I cleaned it off using wet wipes!

Acrylic paint does stay under the nails a bit. If your baby has discovered his or her toes, be sure your paint is non-toxic!

Here are the plates with both footprints on them, positioned slightly off-center to give space for the lettering.

Getting clear prints is more difficult than you might think! Especially if you've got a particularly active baby ;) You might want to practice on some scrap paper first, to see if your baby will spread or contract their toes upon contact, or how much paint is too much for a clear print.

I used my very smallest brush to carefully paint on the lettering.

A ceramic marker will work just as well, if not better, especially if you aren't used to using a brush much. To cure your paint, let dry 24 hours and then bake at 350 for 30 minutes. You'll want to look up any particulars about the plates you use; I found out that the Dollar Tree sells stoneware, so I put my plates into the oven cold and let them warm up along with the oven, and then left them in it to cool. Porcelaine plates should be placed into a hot oven. Now, here's where my cheap plate purchase might've been a problem: the paint isn't permanent. I carefully checked with a fingernail, and it can scratch off quite easily, so these will have to be decoration-only, rather than used for food or anything that will require washing. Oh well! I think they turned out pretty cute!

Babygirl was less impressed, but that's okay. <3