At some point when I was still pregnant with my twins, back before the world turned into an upside-down dumpster fire , I was sent a box with a kit to create your own keepsake ornament . As someone who has negative skills when it comes to craftiness, this seemed completely out of my league.

My babies were born, life was hectic and then suddenly everything screeched to a halt due to COVID-19. We decided to move from a tiny city apartment to a house in the middle of nowhere, in part because our children needed more space, but mostly because my anxiety of living in the epicenter of the pandemic, while being freshly postpartum was… well, taking a toll on me. All our things were packed in boxes by strangers while we coordinated them via FaceTime. Months passed, the year turned into what we know it as today and we’ve slowly made progress opening those boxes of what now feels like a totally different life.


In one of those boxes we found the kit. Our twins are now far from being newborns (today our pediatrician said, “see you at their one-year appointment” to which I reacted by laughing out loud thinking it was a joke, but alas, it wasn’t, they are almost toddlers already) but this is still their first Christmas and I still want to celebrate it and, guess what, remember they were this little for the rest of my life. I took the kit to my husband and asked if we should do it, or if it was just too cheesy. He loved the idea. He is far more crafty than I am and loves anything that requires me not looking at a screen (for work or entertainment).

We’ve made a tradition of gifting each other ornaments, which has proven to be fabulous. We have an RV ornament from when we were dating and had a dream of buying one and living off the grid, a rubber ducky ornament for our son’s first holiday, a rainbow with two clouds that now has a special meaning after our rainbow twins, and new this year, an ornament with five little stick figures wearing masks to celebrate the year we spent it all in quarantine. We even have an ornament with our dogs’ names (alive and in dog heaven). The idea of opening this ornament box and finding two sets of tiny hand and feet prints already makes me cry.
As my coworker said when I asked her if I was being extra corny, “When you’re looking at your kids’ childhood all laid out before you in one box, you have to have something that comes before the pinecones covered in glitter.”

So this weekend, we are making these bad boys and decorating them just in time to hang in our tree . There’s nothing more precious and fleeting than tiny baby footprints, and for someone who is not particularly attached to keepsakes (unless they are weird, I have all my children’s belly buttons from the hospital but have thrown out all art produced by them), I’m excited about these because I get to put them in a box for 11 months of the year, while at the same time looking forward to seeing them again.

Baby ornament keepsake kit

Baby Handprint Footprint Ornament Keepsake Kit - Personalized Baby Prints Ornaments      for Newborn - Baby Nursery Memory Art Kit - Baby Shower Gifts, Christmas Gifts (Gold Paint)

This Baby Handprint Ornament Kit comes with bonus Gold Paint, Paint Brush and Name/Date Printing Kit. You may design it the way you like! The plastic O-ring has a diameter of 4.1″ with a width of 0.55″.

$16.96

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