When a baby is born we know he or she will grow up, but many of us wish that the baby could stay small, innocent, and cuddly, forever. That’s not going to happen, though, so the best that you can do is to take pictures, put up a growth chart, and otherwise keep track of your baby’s progress. Go ahead and tape that growth chart to a wall in the child’s room but don’t stop there. Make a hand print growth chart and you’ll have a unique record of your child, from birth to adulthood.
A hand print growth chart is much different than an ordinary one. A regular growth chart measures how much taller your child gets, as years pass. A hand print growth chart only measures the growth of a child’s hand, over many years. The assorted sizes of hands are a cute way to see your baby grow up to be happy and healthy. Plus, the hands can be used in various ways.
Shortly after bringing home your baby, lay his or her hand on paper, and draw around it. Doing this while the baby is asleep will be helpful. Each year, draw around the baby’s hand and add it to the collection. When you draw the hand print on card stock you end up with something much sturdier than ordinary paper.
There are assorted things that you can do with the hand prints. One project is to turn them into an unusual scrapbook. Poke a hole near the wrist of the hand print of each tracing. Then, slide them all onto a notebook ring and your scrapbook pages are ready. Just attach a photo, an inspirational writing, or other things, to each hand.
It’s easy to keep up with the tracing of the hand if you do so on each of the baby’s birthdays. As the child gets older, it might be easier for you to remember to trace the hand on each first day of school. You can write notations on each hand, like anything fun that happened – or was said by the child – while preparing for the first day of school. You can also color each hand with the child’s favorite color of that year. Don’t forget to put a date or an age on each hand.
When you track the growth of a child’s hand, instead of his or her body, it offers you some cute craft possibilities. Put all of the hands – completely with writings or photos – into a traditional scrapbook. Or, make copies of them and turn them into place mats or bedroom pictures. Each hand should have notations, poem excerpts, pictures, or even colorful designs, all relating to the child. You’ll cherish the hand prints until the day you pass them down to your grown baby.
