Footprints In The Sand

My mother has always loved the "Footprints in the Sand" poem, but has never found the 'right' one to buy. We, being abroad, don't have access to a Walmart or Target either, so I didn't have one of those plaster footprint kits. (We did one with our eldest, so we needed to have something to do with our youngest.) So, I figured that I could make the picture for my mother and have our daughter's footprints on it too.

It was very easy! I bought a painter's canvas (from the equivalent to the dollar stores back home) and I already had the paint (just kid's art paint) and brushes, and the paint pens (for the writing). So, it was a very inexpensive little project!
Estimated time to complete: 1-2 hours depending on drying time

Here's what you need:
1 art canvas (whatever size you want to do)
paint (I used blues, greens, white, brown, and black)
paintbrushes
glitter (you don't have to add the glitter, but I did this with my 5 y/o so glitter was a must!)

Here's what you do:

First thing I did was paint the "water". I mixed a couple different blues together and let the layer almost dry completely before adding the next color. When it was nearly dry, I added a few streaks of white to make the "foaming waves".
Next, I painted the sand. Again, doing multiple layers of colors, this time, browns, tans, yellows, oranges, and again white.
After the painting had dried for a few hours, I added the words to where I wanted them. When the wording had dried, I started the "fun" part. In order to do the footprints, my eldest daughter helped to paint the baby's feet while my husband held her. The hardest part was the footprints. I stamped her little foot down and tried to "guess" where that foot would fall on the next step. Also, because she was fussy about having the cold paint on her feet, she was kicking. So we didn't get the chance to repaint the foot, so each footprint got progressively lighter.
Doing the same thing with the other foot, created the "walking" effect.
When the painting had dried, the footprints weren't as noticeable as I'd like them to be. So, I painted over them with the same color just adding layers until it was the color that I wanted.

That's all it took to get this one-of-a-kind painting. It will make a lovely gift for my mother for her birthday, or Mother's day.