Father's Day Footprint - Toddler Craft

Looking for a craft that I could use as a Father’s Day Gift or as Owl calls it, “Daddy’s Day” was quite the undertaking. I found two crafts that we were actually successful in completing with minimal angst. The first is a Father’s Day Footprint. I found this idea listed in a variety of locations on Pinterest, but typically the craft was completed with one shoe print of the father’s shoe and one barefoot child’s foot. I have two little ones that needed to be involved and so our version looks a little different. Here are my directions, tips, tricks, and lessons learned from completing this craft.

Supplies:

Washable Finger Paint – We used blue, yellow, and red.
Paint Brush
White Cardstock
Copy of the Poem: “Walk a little slower daddy” (Author Unknown)

The steps for completing this craft are simple. Print the poem. Paint the bottom of Daddy’s shoe and make a print of the bottom of the shoe over the poem. Make foot prints of the kids’ feet using different colors of paint inside Daddy’s foot print. Wahla – adorable toddler craft for Father’s Day!

Here are a few hints for keeping this craft an enjoyable and successful experience:

Print multiple copies of the poem on white cardstock. The cardstock is thick enough to withstand the extra layers of paint. I recommend printing at least 3 copies to give you the best shot of getting the right amount of paint on the right foot in the right place.

Print one additional copy with an alternative page orientation (landscape versus portrait). A landscape print of the poem allows you to put the kids’ footprints on either side of the poem, rather than on top of each other. This is especially helpful if you are short on time, didn’t let the paint dry, or were just unfortunate with aiming toddler feet in the right place 🙂 This is also a good solution if the multiple footprints on top of each other obscure too much of the wording in the poem.

Making it fun for the toddlers. The kids loved squishing their feet in the washable paint. I pressed the footprint on each page once without putting the foot back in the paint, which resulted in the later prints being less opaque, making the poem easier to see. I think the highlight for my eldest was being allowed to paint the bottom of Daddy’s shoe with a paint brush. The downside is that my youngest didn’t quite grasp the concept of only painting the bottom of Daddy’s shoe and managed to cover the top side and laces of Daddy’s shoe in red paint while I was laying out the completed pages to dry. Oops! For this reason, I highly recommend using washable paint and an old pair of Daddy’s shoes just in case.

Use shoes that have visible tread left on the bottom. Make sure that Daddy’s shoe (even though I recommend using an old one) has enough tread left on the bottom to make a good foot print. Old hiking books and some running shoes work well, sandals and house shoes do not.

Roll the painted shoe onto the paper making sure that the toe and heel make contact with the paper. Otherwise, you’ll end up with something similar to my first version missing toes and heels as shown below.

Make sure you use the same foot/shoe (right or left) for each print. The craft looks best when all the footprints are going the right direction and it’s a horrible feeling to realize that you used Daddy’s right shoe, but the kids both have painted left feet.

Let the paint dry completely in between the creation of each print. If the paint is still wet the footprints will smear together, combine colors, and not be as distinct once dry.

In the future, especially since we are planning on adding another little footprint soon, I have considered a few alternatives to this craft that I look forward to trying, including:

Making a separate footprint poem for each child

Using a long piece of white butcher paper with the poem at the top and the kids’ footprints below

Complete this craft as a tracing of each foot in colored pencils, so the colors don’t blend and allow for easier visualization of the poem.

Father’s Day 2015: Ladybug is 34 months and Owl is 18 months

Have you tried this Father’s Day Craft? Do you have any trips or tricks to share?