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Baby Footprint Poems can Graphically Express Your Heart Emotions
Creating your baby footprint poem does not have to be difficult. Scan your image of your baby’s feet, or get a photographic shop to do it for you and save it as a .jpeg or tiff file, which can be imported by graphics manipulating software.  You can download a free graphics package from the internet such as GIMP, which is a near-equivalent of Photoshop - and it’s open source! Then there are others: iMage, Image Enhance, ImageForge, Painter 25, etc. You might also find your standard Windows program, “Paint” (normally found under your program “Accessories”) of some use. Also, if you have the Microsoft Office pack, that normally includes a throw-in program called Picture Manager.

It’s not so difficult to learn how to manipulate images with any of these, cropping and editing your baby footprints picture to a useable size. Then, using your baby footprint image, create an eye-pleasing design which can be printed off on some beautiful paper and framed on your wall. This can be done either at home, or at a print shop near to you.

The footprints could be used as the main feature of your display, or you could miniaturize the image and use it as a border around a poem which expresses your feelings as a new parent, and which in future will remind you of the special occasion when you welcomed your new baby into the world.

These make excellent gifts for Grandparents, God Parents, Uncles, Aunts and other relatives and close friends.

If you have lost or misplaced your hospital footprint image, simply create another, using baby footprint kits readily available for purchase. Moldings, castings, impressions, prints, and photographs are also ways of capturing those little feet before they grow.

Feel free to use the following example poem to enhance your baby’s footprint in the image that you will create as your memory of baby’s early days.

Your little footprints will stay with us
Long after you’ve grown and gone
They will stir our fondest memories
Of the day that you were born
All our dreams were then completed
All our joys became fulfilled
All our prayers for you - dear child
Were answered when you arrived
For our part - you know we love you
And in time you’ll do the same
Now whenever we see these footprints
You’ll warm our hearts again

Change the Words and Make it Yours
You may like to change words around to tie into your feelings and memories. For instance, you can change “dear child” to your own baby’s name. Then the line might become
All our prayers for you - Josephina
or
All our prayers for you - dear Lucy

If you have handprints - change the footprints words! If born at night, change “day” to “night”.

With the shell of a poem already there, it’s so easy to start changing a word here, a line there - and then suddenly you’ve got a whole new poem - your own baby footprint poem!

(Some days later - 2009.03.22: )

So now we have created our mini series of these 3 posts to inspire and give some tips on creating baby footprint graphics and composing poems to combine into a family keepsake:
1.    Expressing Graphic Emotions For the Times
2.    Baby Footprint Poetry and Graphics Masterpieces
3.    Encapsulate Your Emotions in a Baby Footprint Poem (this post)

Creating your own baby footprint clipart is not something that many people first consider when discussing computer graphics or clip art. Free baby clipart is actually something that can be beneficial to people on many different levels. Baby clipart is a very popular subject online. Whether the baby clip art is being sold online or given away on free clipart websites, the fun in making as well as the benefits go well beyond money or art.

To create a genuine work of art using your baby’s footprint, some tools will be necessary. Paper, ink, a small paper plate, a scanner and a good graphics software program should all be readily available. Printer Ink can be used if you buy it in bulk and for this purpose, the paper plate should be used. If the baby’s foot is small enough, some ink pads may be available that are large enough to accommodate the baby’s foot. There are the popular imprint kits available if you need to simplify this step. Graphics programs like Picasa created by Google for Windows-based computer systems, and the more comprehensive GIMP (for both Linux and Windows based programs) are both free and have a very low learning curve. More advanced graphics programs are also readily available for a reasonable price – so you don’t have to hand over hundreds of dollars for the Adobe Photoshop – excellent though it is.

Paper to Foot
When the baby’s foot (or feet - also hand depending on the preferences of the person creating the imprint clipart) is inked up, probably the most practical next step is to bring the paper to the foot. You can carefully smooth out – almost gently stretch the foot and apply some degree of firm pressure to ensure a more thorough image without missing the foot arch and other hollows.

OR Foot to Paper?
The family fun way and more suitable for older infants is: the child should be helped to step on and walk across the paper (though numerous sheets of paper together may be advisable depending on the baby in question) and there should now be a complete selection of baby footprints to choose from. The creator then only need allow their mind to wander some, as if staring off into the clouds to see what their imagination may see. Just remember that if you drift off too long, you’ll likely find a lot of extra inky prints in places you weren’t wanting! So keep the camera or video to hand to snap and scoop up any extras!

Once the ink has had sufficient time to dry, place the paper containing the baby’s footprint onto the scanner and scan a copy. The graphics program can then be used to manipulate the picture, cropping, cutting and pasting as may be necessary for the free clip art that is to be created. The baby foot print clip art can then be manipulated so as to fit many different categories of clipart. In addition to all of this, a viable and legal record of the baby’s footprint is now in existence should anything untold ever happen to the child.