As the time is fast approaching for the new baby to arrive, I will have few special guests – fellow bloggers – visiting my blog on Thursday to share some craft, ideas, thoughts and experiences.
Today I am happy to introduce Amanda from Expat Life With A Double Buggy with a fun and meaningful craft activity – A Garden Keepsake Handprint.
Amanda is British but have called the Netherlands home since 2000. She lives in a void between being British and being Dutch. She is ‘mama’ to three boys aged seven and under. All three were born in the Netherlands and have dual nationality but the reality is they are more Cloggie than Brit….. and that makes life interesting. Motherhood abroad throws up challenges, questions and amazing memories. Her “Expat Life with a Double Buggy” blog is her tale of living, loving and mothering abroad in the Netherlands, about the ups and downs of life in a foreign country. You can follow Amanda on Twitter, Facebook, G+ and Pinterest.
A Garden Handprint Keepsake in 5 Easy Steps
Last summer I wanted to make some kind of keepsake for our garden, aware of how fast our three little boys are growing. We decided on a handprint tile.
Step 1: My handy husband took loose planks of wood from the shed and constructed and fixed a rectangle with them. He then placed the frame on a piece of MDF and then on a plastic sheet.
Step 2: We mixed the concrete and poured it into the wooden frame, and my husband spent some time making the concrete smooth. We left it a few minutes until the concrete became a little sturdier.
Step 3: We wrote the date in the concrete at the bottom of the rectangle with a thick pencil.
Step 4: We started with the biggest handprints and worked down the family, working out roughly how the prints would all fit in the concrete rectangle before the first hand went in. One by one each member of the family pressed their hand firmly into the concrete.
We kept a bucket of water and a tea towel handy to wash and dry hands, as each child was finished. We wrote our initial under each handprint.
Step 5: We left the concrete to dry. Once the structure was set we removed the frame (2 days later) and set the tile upright in the garden.
A year later, it is still standing proud as a reminder of how much little hands become that little bit bigger as each month passes. As years go by we’ll realise just how small my boys’ hands once were.
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