Preserving Precious Handprints & Footprints {Child to Cherish Tower of Time Review}

What is it about lit­tle ones’ hands and feet? Maybe because they’re such a mir­a­cle? Because they’re so tiny? Or because those moments are so fleet­ing? I’m not entirely sure of it, but I love them and am a total sucker for hand­print & foot­print crafts. Any­thing to pre­serve those pre­cious lit­tle hands & feet!So, I recently got to try out a new way to pre­serve those pre­cious prints… in plas­ter as part of the Child to Cher­ish Hand­prints Tower of Time Kit! I’ve got the ink prints from the hos­pi­tal of course. And, over the last few years, we’ve done quite a few hand­print crafts. But, I’ve never made any plas­ter prints/molds. So, I was excited to try it out!

The Tower of Time kit includes 5 tins (1 for the first 5 years of a child’s life), each con­tain­ing plas­ter pow­der & direc­tions. Cute con­cept, right?! We didn’t do any­thing like this for the old­est two. And, I didn’t want to have 5 for Baby Brother yet none of the oth­ers. So, I decided to change it up a bit. My plan was to use num­bers 1, 3, and 5 for a hand­print of Baby Brother, Lit­tle Brother, and Big Brother. How cute would that look hang­ing on the wall?!

So, we got to work– care­fully fol­low­ing the instruc­tions, mea­sur­ing, mix­ing, and then try­ing to get the prints. The plas­ter was easy to mix up– the kids even helped! We did one tin at a time, as I didn’t want to run the risk of it dry­ing too fast & not get­ting an imprint.

We tried for Baby Brother’s hand­print first, but failed. Those wee lit­tle new­born hands just would.not.open. You know how they like to keep them in those cute lit­tle fists? Yah, not so great for plas­ter molds. He was awake and just not hav­ing it. So, before the plas­ter dried and we couldn’t get any­thing, we opted to try a foot­print. And, well, that turned out pretty darn cute!

Look at those super tiny toes!! So crazy! We’re plan­ning to attempt a hand­print of him in the #2 tin in a few months (or maybe not until he’s one). But, we did man­age to get pretty decent prints from the big­ger boys.

The key was mak­ing sure the plas­ter was just the right con­sis­tency. After putting the mix­ture in the tins, we kept tap­ping the tins on the table (as per the direc­tions) until all the lit­tle bub­bles dis­ap­peared. Right as the plas­ter seemed like it was set­ting, we pushed their hands down in it. Of course, since kid­dos are involved, they’re by no means “per­fect”. But, it’s pretty fun to have their lit­tle prints pre­served in the plas­ter like this. Can’t wait to add Baby Brother’s hand to the mix and decide what to do with tin #5!

They have to cure for a week. Then, I need to decide how I want to dis­play them and if I want to add any paint, color, or labels. What would YOU do? I’ll keep you posted on what we end up with!

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Dis­clo­sure: This post has been com­pen­sated by Pol­li­nate Media Group and Child to Cher­ish. All opin­ions and expe­ri­ences are entirely my own.