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Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake for Kids!

This ghostly Halloween footprint craft is an easy, fun, & festive keepsake to make with your child this October!

You could even simplify this idea and use it at any preschool or classroom Halloween party too!

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake for Kids! | Where The Smiles Have Been #Halloween #ghost #footprint #fall #kidscraft #trickortreat #keepsake

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake!

I am a HUGE fan of personalized decor.

That’s what really makes a house a home and not some stuffy waiting room or lobby area.

Since this is our house, I want to decorate it with a collection of our life and memories.

Photographs, mementos, keepsakes, etc. that are special to us, even if no one else understands why we live in Alabama yet have pictures of a lobster and a horse hanging on our modern farmhouse gallery wall. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I especially love personalized decor for the holidays!

It’s so fun to pull out a tub of decorations year after year and rediscover little family treasures, like a gallery of all my kids’ Halloween costumes over the years, or a ‘First Trip to the Beach’ ornament.

Since I gave birth to my son last year, this desire for personalized keepsakes has been in overdrive, and I decided to create a little Halloween decoration that incorporates his cute little one-year-old footprints.

I am just in love with the ghostly little Halloween footprint craft we threw together, and here I’ll show you all the details of its creation!

The Halloween Footprint Giver

So here is the little lad whose footprints will be making this Halloween craft possible: Rowan!

This year will be his second Halloween but his first time trick-or-treating and getting the full All Hallow’s Eve experience.

It’s therefore going to be just as if not more special and memorable than his first holiday.

I mean, how adorable was this little four-month-old lobster last year?!

Halloween Baby Lobster Costume |Where The Smiles Have Been

This year, he’s going as a biker babe in his Sons of Anarchy costume, complete with a hardcore pumpkin bucket makeover!

Sons of Anarchy Toddler Halloween Costume: Toddlers of Anarchy Cuteness!

Halloween Footprint Craft Supplies

Here’s what I used to create this easy Halloween footprint craft with my son:

NOTE: You certainly don’t NEED to do something as fancy as this with a wooden board, spray paint, vinyl, and all that.

Some construction paper, craft paint, and a marker would still make the perfect Halloween footprint craft at any preschool or classroom party!

Painting The Board

I had a general idea in my head that I was going to turn Rowan’s footprints into ghosts and somehow incorporate the phrase “Trick or treat, smell my feet” in with it.

Beyond that was still TBD when I started, which is usually how I work.

Inspiration strikes and I figure out the details as I go!

I had purchased some 6″ x 8″ MDF boards about a year ago just to have on hand, so I pulled one out for this project since it is the perfect size for Rowan’s little tootsies.

I then covered both sides and all edges with some flat black spray paint.

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Adding Some Glitter Paint

Since my spray paint was flat black, and because I wanted to make the board a little more Halloweeny, I applied a coat of glitter paint next to brighten the black up a bit.

I also used this glitter paint for my ‘Happy Halloween’ sign as well as for the cereal box signs on my pumpkin wreath and NFL ‘House Divided’ wreath.

It’s a clear gloss paint that has black, orange, and some green glitter in it, I am definitely getting my money’s worth out of it this fall!

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Rowan’s Halloween Footprints

After the board was completely dry, I recruited the help of my husband to wrangle our squirmy toddler long enough to get his footprints…sorry, no action shots during this phase.

Since I was going to turn his prints into little ghosts, I grabbed some white acrylic craft paint and painted a light coat onto one of Rowan’s feet with a foam brush.

I then guided it onto the board and hoped that it would turn out.

This capturing of the footprints was definitely a two-person job (thanks for your help, honey!), and I had to encourage Rowan to uncurl his toes so the prints would resemble a foot and not just a random blob.

Luckily, it turned out great!

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

The Halloween Footprint Craft Design Mockup

Since my Silhouette Cameo is my most favorite crafting tool in the history of ever, I’d be using it to create the rest of the design elements in vinyl.

Hooray for no hand painting!

After Rowan’s little footprints had dried, I snapped a pic of the board and then uploaded it into Silhouette Studio so I could make a design mockup.

I’m a very visual person and need to actually SEE my design in the flesh instead of just in my head because it really helps me to determine the placement and colors of all the elements.

Here’s what I came up with:

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Adding Registration Marks

To make my life a little easier and the layering of all the vinyl a little less stressful (hopefully at least), I added several pairs of registration marks.

These little boxes (I filled them in with yellow in my design just to make them easier to see) would be cut out above each line of text to help align the colored words overtop their white backgrounds.

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

You can read a more detailed description of what registration marks are and why they are so helpful when layering vinyl here.

Cutting The Vinyl

White Vinyl: Using my Silhouette Cameo, I first cut out all of the white vinyl pieces (the font backgrounds and speech bubble as well as their registration marks).

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Orange Vinyl: Next came the orange vinyl words.

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Green Vinyl: The same process was done for cutting the green vinyl.

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Purple Vinyl: The purple vinyl got the same treatment.

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Black Vinyl: The black vinyl cuts were the smallest and simplest ones, but they were the most finicky to cut!

I ended up losing the inner rings on the crazy set of eyes (the right pair) but I still like it just as well…although it kinda resembles Cookie Monster now. ;)

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

The Vinyl Cuts

Here you can see all of my vinyl pieces after they were cut with my Silhouette Cameo and the excess vinyl weeded (or removed).

A great thing about this project was that all the cuts were small, so I was able to use up a bunch of vinyl scraps left over from other projects.

Horray for frugal crafting!

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Layering The Text: To layer the text, I just placed some transfer paper over top the colored vinyl pieces then lined up their registration marks above the white ones (once again, for a more detailed explanation, check this out).

After a quick rub with my scraper tool, my words were layered and beautiful.

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Applying The Vinyl: Now that all of my vinyl pieces were ready for application, I started applying them onto the board.

I just pulled the vinyl off its backing with some transfer paper and once again used my scraper tool to adhere it solidly to the board.

I didn’t bother with any measurements or even the hinge method before placing the vinyl (ain’t nobody got time for that!), so I took a walk on the wild side and just eyeballed everything.

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been
Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake! | Where The Smiles Have Been

Our Completed Halloween Footprint Craft: Rowan’s Ghostly Tootsies

After all the vinyl was applied, I added some orange ribbon to the back for hanging, and Rowan’s Halloween footprint craft was complete!

Isn’t it just the cutest?!?

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake for Kids! | Where The Smiles Have Been #Halloween #ghost #footprint #fall #kidscraft #trickortreat #keepsake

I just LOVE this!

It’s festive and cute and personalized.

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake for Kids! | Where The Smiles Have Been #Halloween #ghost #footprint #fall #kidscraft #trickortreat #keepsake

This piece will make me smile year after year when I reminisce about my little boy’s first real Halloween and how tiny his feet used to be…

…and I’ll also probably be a little sad at how much he’s grown and the fact that he’s no longer my little baby (*sniffle*).

Ahhhh, how bittersweet motherhood is…

Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake for Kids! | Where The Smiles Have Been #Halloween #ghost #footprint #fall #kidscraft #trickortreat #keepsake
Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake for Kids! | Where The Smiles Have Been #Halloween #ghost #footprint #fall #kidscraft #trickortreat #keepsake
Halloween Footprint Craft: A Ghostly Keepsake for Kids! | Where The Smiles Have Been #Halloween #ghost #footprint #fall #kidscraft #trickortreat #keepsake

If You Enjoyed This…

Make sure you check out my Project Gallery for all of my other crafty creations, easy home improvement projects, and freebies, like these other festive Halloween ideas!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Where The Smiles Have Been | Crafts. DIY. Home. Mom Life.

Halloween Crafts for Kids - The Mom Chronicles

Tuesday 29th of September 2015

[…] Halloween Ghostly Foot Print Craft from Where The Smiles Have […]

Emily @ Two Purple Couches

Monday 21st of September 2015

That lobster costume!!!! I am dying over the cuteness!!! I love how your sign turned out, too—it's such a great keepsake to pull out each year!

Christine

Thursday 24th of September 2015

Thank you, Emily! Yes, I love how this sign turned out too. Since we made it last year, this was the first time I pulled it out of storage....and it got me a little misty-eyed! It's definitely a sweet little keepsake from my son's first year trick-or-treating. (And isn't he the most adorable lobster you've ever seen?!) ;)

Kelly of Simply Kelly Designs

Monday 21st of September 2015

This project is so much fun! I bet Rowan's feet smelled good when he was a baby. I snap pics and create mockups all the time. It helps to take the guess work out of sizing things.

Christine

Thursday 24th of September 2015

Thanks, Kelly! Yeah, I'm a big mockup lover too....it's such a nice way to visualize before you get too far into a project!

Emma

Sunday 6th of September 2015

Love the sign but that little lobster - too cute for words!

Christine

Friday 11th of September 2015

Thank you so much, Emma! I agree completely! :)

Vanessa

Wednesday 1st of October 2014

Thank you for a thorough tutorial. The project is terrific and I see some Grandsons getting a plaque!

Christine

Thursday 2nd of October 2014

I’m so glad you found this tutorial helpful, Vanessa! Have fun creating little keepsakes with your grandsons! :)