I don’t remember now how I got the idea in the first place, but when Ariel was born I decided to preserve her footprints by having them printed on a plate created through the MakIt company.

Using a water-soluble marker, I colored on the bottom of her foot, “huffed” on it to ensure the ink was somewhat evenly moist, then pressed it onto the plate “blank.”  (This is a two-person job!  One person has to hold the baby in position while the other does the actual footprinting.  Michael is a great baby-holder!)  I did this as part of an overall design that included her name and birth stats, which were traced from a computer printout.  The papers used for creating the plates are thin like tracing paper, so it’s easy to color over a printout.

We’ve done this now for each of our other children, ‘though depending on how cooperative the babies are and which markers we use, some of the plates have come out better than others.  (Tip: We ordered a classroom kit up front, so we have a bunch of blanks.  Now I have them on hand and just have to send them in and pay for processing/shipping when each baby is born.)

Each plate is a little bit different.  Most of ours use the hands as flowers and the feet as leaves, but here are some other hand/footprint ideas I’ve Pinned on Pinterest:

Our “theme” this time ’round is natural baby care, so I decided to go with a natural theme for Caleb’s baby book and his plate, too.  For his plate, I wanted a font that looked somewhat organic/flowing, rather than stiff – but not girly-flowery.  I like this one!  The idea was for his prints to serve as the foliage on the tree branch, but I didn’t get them in as close to the branch as I’d intended.  (Working with fidgety newborn feet/hands can be tricky!)  I’m pretty pleased with it, though.  It came out nice and strong/sharp.

Do you have a special/unique way to preserve baby memories?

This post is being shared at the Tuesday Baby Linkup, Titus 2 Tuesday, Whip it Up Wednesday.