Once Upon a Time...

I promised the story of the Mother's Day gifts that Alyssa and I gave to all of the grandmothers. And here you go...

First of all, let me explain how not easy it is to try to dip a 6 month old's hands in wet paint and get a nice obvious handprint on the paper before those hands try to go in the mouth. Yes, believe it or not, my college-educated mind thought this would be a great idea to do for the grandmothers while she was still so tiny.

But unfortunately the thought that I had in my mind is not quite what it turned out to look like. The Wednesday before Mother's Day, Luke and I headed to the mall to try to find a nice, sentimental first Mother's Day (as a grandmother) gift for the grandmothers and something special for my mom, who although she has 2 grandsons, this is her first granddaughter. Anything that was sentimental or "special" was pretty much an engraved frame or a locket or something from an older grandchild to grandmother. Nothing suited me. But as we were walking, this amazing thought popped into my head and it was off to A.C. Moore we went. I bought 3 unfinished frames, 4 scrapbook-size pages, and some tempora paint, and I was all set.

Once we get home, I painted the frames and then I made my handprints on 2 of the pages and then Luke could only fit one handprint on the one for his mom so we made his handprint. I waited for them to dry but by the time they were dry, Alyssa was asleep. Little did I know that this would have been the perfect time to attempt to paint her tiny hands and make her handprint.

Nope, we woke up the next day and tried to do it. I think I got one really good handprint and then the rest were smeared. The one for Granny (Luke's mom) was so bad that I had to paint over it with white so we could start over. And then another was so bad but unfortunately I could not start over with that one so I had to use that 4th scrapbook page and start all over (my handprints included). This is about the time when my mom called me to go to Walmart to pick up some last minute things for our beach trip. I had to rush to clean Alyssa's little hands and my own so that there were no traces of the paint on her. Yeah, right! A lot easier said than done (as was the case with this whole project)!

We get to Walmart, and I head back to the photo area to get some pictures developed. This took some time because I have over 650 pictures on my picture CD and that takes time to upload onto their computers. Meanwhile my mom is calling me but I cannot tell her where I am because I was in the middle of making a brag book for her (for some reason she hardly has any pictures of Alyssa besides the professional ones I get done). Anyway, 20 minutes later we are finally able to meet up. For a very short trip in Walmart! I think she waited longer than we were actually there.

After we were done at Walmart we went our separate ways. Luckily for me, I forgot to get what I went to Walmart for in the first place (our awful family portraits that we had done for Alyssa's 5 month mark~ yet another story for another time)! I say luckily because again we walked out to our cars together and I couldn't figure out a way to explain to her why I had to go back in (remember those photos I was getting printed out). I also didn't want to have to make a second trip to Walmart when I was already pressed for time. I still needed to try to get one more left handprint of Alyssa and two more right handprints!

So it was off to home we went. Once we were there, it seemed like Alyssa just knew when I wanted her to take a nap because she was in a sense refusing. Finally after about 3 hours of nervousness that these projects weren't going to get done, she falls asleep... in my arms! This is bad because I need to move her to someplace where I can still get to her hands and not wake her. I moved her to that wonderful infant rocking chair, and surprisingly she stayed asleep. Well, that is until I started to paint her hands! Then she woke up. And what does she like to do when she wakes up... yep, she rubs her eyes! Phew! I caught her just in time. How I managed this next part I will never know, but I managed to get her handprints (the last three that I needed) on the pages and wash her up just in time to get a phone call from my mom saying that she wanted to come over and show me her new Jeep. Not to mention that she also ran into Granny Lisa and Grandpa Mike and they were also headed over. Panic sets in because I have these wet pages and the frames sitting out to dry and I have to move them with very little time to spare. Again, I managed!

But I still could not get all of the paint off of her hands. She had purple paint underneath of her tiny fingernails and nothing I could do in the little time that I had would clear it out. I was a nervous wreck thinking that I had just blown my cover. Fortunately, even though Granny Lisa noticed it she never asked about it!

Here is our work of art!!!!!



Of course, I wasn't thinking again when I decided to post the pictures to Photobucket before I gave the gift to Gammy! And better yet, I had the title on it as "Mother's Day gift"! But even though she saw it ahead of time, she still appreciated it!

Each one had it's little imperfections...
Gammy's: had to cut out the handprints because one on the one page looked good but not the other and vice versa with another page.
Granny's: had to paint over her one handprint since it was all smudged
Grammy's: I had to improvise and kind of paint in a few parts of the finger since Alyssa didn't want to cooperate on one of the handprints

So for those of you reading this and thinking this would be a good idea to do with a baby, think again! It reminds me of trying something similar for Christmas last year. I bought stuff to make stones for the yard and have Alyssa's handprint imprinted in those but her hands were so tiny and fragile that we were not able to do it because of the pressure you had to apply in order for the handprint to show up. I ended up writing Alyssa's name on them with her birthdate and then decorating them with stones and other jewels. I guess I am way too eager to keep her little handprints engraved upon everyone's hearts!