Those tiny baby feet and hands are so precious, wouldn’t it be nice to hang on to them forever? With our hand and foot print design you can! These make such a wonderful memory for a push present using the hospital pictures, or a fun grandparent gift for the holidays or a first birthday. We get a lot of questions about the best way to get the prints to us. Most of these glasses are ordered in our Etsy shop or the website store and it can feel overwhelming to get these prints at home.
The most important thing to remember is that it’s not worth stressing out over. Likely you’re a new parent, or a friend or family member sneaking around to get this print. We’ve heard all kinds of stories about the lengths people go to to make these prints 100% perfect. While perfect can seem a worthy goal, please keep in mind that babies are a tough crowd to work with, they just don’t have a care in the world and this print means nothing to them. Most people have the best results either sending the hospital prints with a ruler next to them, or creating this glass when the baby is a few months old and easily distracted by their favorite toy. Keep in mind that, while a clean print works best, it’s the little smudges that make it truly your memory.
Now that you’re no longer looking for perfection how do you transfer the child’s hand or foot to paper? Carefully. Non toxic paint works best, in a contrasting color with the paper. Some parents have construction paper laying around, they tend to use white paint on blue or black paper. If you have white printer paper a black paint works best. Because kids tend to put their hands and feet in their mouths every chance they get I recommend having the “print station” set up ahead of time. A paint brush works really well to get a clear print because you have more control over how much paint is on the hand or foot. Also keep baby wipes handy and wipe off the paint as soon as you’re done to prevent any paint poo.
Once you have your perfectly imperfect print how should you send it? Our editing software handles almost all file types. The preferred file is a high resolution jpeg or AI file with the print next to a ruler.
Sidenote: If you have ordered a shot glass or an ornament the small space available means there’s no need for a ruler. The wine glasses, pint glasses, and (sometimes) rocks glasses allow the print to be actual size. If the ruler is there we can make sure we really have the correct measurements.
It helps if the ruler is set slightly to the side, because we are able to use that ruler within our editing software as we rotate the image to fit your baby’s name next to the print.
For high resolution images, most camera phones now have wonderful resolution. The most important thing is to make sure there are no shadows from your phone covering the awesome details of your unique print.
Once you have your photograph of the print next to the ruler you can send the the image through email for website orders or the Etsy messaging system for Etsy orders. We’ll send a final proof for you to approve before etching your glasses, and you’ll be all set!