Baby Footprint Valentine’s Day Craft

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Happy February, friends!

I’m excited to share Sophie’s valentine craft with you today! You can bet that I’m taking advantage of major holidays when it comes to baby crafts around here! 😉 There are just too many cute ideas.

Since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, Sophie and I spent time making some valentines one morning this week! I wanted to do a craft that involved her footprints and the leftover acrylic paint from our Mistletoes Christmas craft, so using her feet to create hearts seemed like the perfect creative solution. (That, and she loves to scrunch up her little hands, so right now, feet are a better option for crafting projects!)

I’ll format this post just like the Mistletoes Christmas craft post, so you can see the materials I gathered and what our process was!

Baby Footprint Valentine’s Day Craft

For this craft, I used cheap paint from a craft store, and construction paper we already had around the house!

Materials: 

  • White paper (I used paper from a sketchbook I never use)
  • Red construction paper
  • Red paint
  • Sharpie
  • Scissors
  • Double-sided tape

(Optional Materials):

  • Paper towels
  • Cookie sheet
  • Parchment paper
  • Small bowl

Baby Preparedness Steps 😉

Since we were dealing with wet paint and a wiggly baby, I like to take a few steps to combat crazy messes!

I got out a cookie sheet and lined it with parchment paper. This is where I squirted the red paint and where I could spread it all out.

I also got a paper towel pretty damp and set it in a small bowl. I wanted to have this on hand close by so that I could quickly wipe Sophie’s painted feet off! I had a roll of dry paper towels nearby as well.

We did this craft on our linoleum kitchen floor – it gave me more elbow room to work with Sophie, and I felt more stable since I was sitting. Plus, the floor is very washable, which always puts me more at ease. 😉

Directions:

It’s about as simple as it seems! I squirted the red paint onto the parchment paper. Then I made sure I had the white sheets of paper nearby.

I held Sophie in my lap and stuck her foot in the paint to cover the bottom completely. I then leaned way forward and pressed her foot firmly onto the white paper. Sometimes I had to pause for a moment, with her foot still pressed on the paper, and wait for her cute little toes to relax and press themselves down firmly onto the paper!

Sophie was SO adorable during this craft – even more so than our Christmas crafting session! I think since she is over a month older than last time, she’s much more aware of what all is going on. Instead of getting sad or frustrated while I moved her foot around on the paint, she actually GIGGLED! And this happened a couple times! I think she liked the sensation of squishing her toes around in the wet paint! It was so fun. 🙂

We pressed her foot onto all the white sheets of paper I had out, assembly line style. I could usually get a couple sheets stamped with her footprint before needing to cover that foot with more paint again. I just kept going with her until I could tell it was time to take a break.

I quickly wiped that foot off, using the damp paper towel in the small bowl.

Then I repeated those steps with her other foot, making sure that the heels of the feet touched together on the paper, and angled outward (to look like a heart). This foot was a bit more tricky, since I had to be more accurate with where she stamped her foot down! 🙂

These didn’t all turn out totally perfectly – we’ve got some smeared toes, some light heel marks, and so on – but I wasn’t going to be a perfectionist about it. Sophie and I decided it’s the thought that counts. 😉 They’re still cute, even if we didn’t end up with perfect footprints every time!

Later that afternoon, once the footprints were all dry, I drew a heart outline around each set of footprints and cut that out. I then affixed the heart to a valentine-sized cut piece of red construction paper using double-sided tape.

After that, the final step was to write “Happy Valentine’s Day,” “Love, Sophie,” and “2018” on each!

When Sophie woke up from her early afternoon nap, she and I did a little photoshoot so she could show you the valentines she’d made! PS — we wish we could give one to absolutely everybody, but we could only make as many as we had patience for! 😉

Isn’t she just the sweetest little Valentine? 🙂

Do you like to make cute crafts for various holidays? What fun craft ideas do you like to make?