Sep 10, 2011

Handprints and GCD Studios

Apparently, when my first child was born I had a lot of time on my hands. I impressed her tiny hand into clay for a frame, I painted it and used her hand print to make a turkey on a Thanksgiving plate and I made hand prints for the grandparents. When my son came along, my daughter was still only 21 months and suddenly all that extra time evaporated. Fast forward four years and the poor little guy has no keepsake of his hand prints! There are tons of ideas on how to use hand prints in art work and design. Browse the internet, Etsy and Pinterest and you are sure to find lots of fun ideas like these:


I thought it was about time to remedy my son's lack of hand print memories and figured a layout was the perfect way to do so. Lucky for me, I had the perfect story to tell about a book called The Kissing Hand that his teacher read to him on the first day of school.
I painted his hand with non toxic washable paint and gently pressed it onto white cardstock. I made about four impressions on a 12x12 piece of white cardstock so I could choose the best one! The story is actually about raccoons, but I thought the elephant with heart and little turtle (from the die cut sheet from the Animal Crackers for Boys collection) were too cute not to include.

and I left plenty of room to journal about the story and our connection to it:
I hope this gives you some ideas of how to include those little hand prints on your next project so we can always remember how small they were!

Supplies Used:
GCD Studios Animal Crackers for Boys patterned paper and Metal Rimmed Glass Brads
American Crafts Alphas
Papertrey Inc. White Cardstock

9 comments:

  1. umm, that sounds like me! I don't know that I ever did any hand prints with my kids I have some but I didn't do them! :) I really like how you remedied the problem, such a great layout! AND that font is SO cute!

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  2. oh my goodness! I so love your inspiration handprint finds... and your layout is just so perfect!!!

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  3. oh the cuteness! love love alll of those, and thanks for the reminder: the last time we were at the zoo, i took a picture of all the ideas they had (you can pay to have your child's handprint turned into an animal) for later... :)

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  4. GUILTY as charged!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 fab idea I may just have to borrow it for my poor ly done by second!

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  5. I LOVE this layout and how you used the hand print. Great job girlie!

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  6. Love the use of hand prints in our art. it is such a wonderful and personal touch and great way to measure growth.

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  7. Those canvas hand prints are a great idea. Nice find. It would be cool to do a collage of canvases with hand prints from everyone is the family.

    Such a sweet layout and a great story!

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  8. Such a great layout Rebecca! I love the handprints!

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  9. Love how you put the hand print on a layout.

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