Saving a baby hand print painted on cloth?

December 27, 2014 7:53 AM

For Christmas, we were given her grandson's baby hand and foot prints painted on by acrylic paint. They are on a few cheap pot holders from Target or somewhere similar. I would like to preserve them but don't know much about crafts, so what would be the best way to save them to ensure they are around for years to come?

The only things that are out already are vacuum sealing them and laminating them, I would also like to avoid framing them. I guess I'm thinking more along the lines of the glaze they use for pottery but I don't know if that's possible given a flammable material.

So, what would be the best way to preserve these prints?

posted by lpcxa0 to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Did they paint right on the potholders or did they upload an image and have it printed on? If the latter, you could ask the parents for a copy of the image they uploaded and do something with that.
posted by dawkins_7 at 7:58 AM on December 27, 2014

The main thing is to avoid handling them, which will crack and flake the paint in the long run, and the oils and dirt from people's hands will discolor and degrade the fabric. But putting on some kind of glaze as a sealer will alter the original creation, so it should be avoided. Framing them in a shadow box under glass, stitched onto some kind of backing, would be the best, museum-quality way of preserving them, but you said you prefer not to do that. So, assuming you want to display them, second-best would be to stitch them to some backing fabric as a wall hanging. That exposes them to dust, but you can brush or vacuum that off occasionally. If you don't want to display them but just preserve them to look at now and then, just wrap them in cloth and store in a drawer.
posted by beagle at 8:14 AM on December 27, 2014

Response by poster: Directly painted on
posted by lpcxa0 at 8:14 AM on December 27, 2014

Get them framed at a professional framing shop (NOT Michaels or similar). They can put them in a shadow box or some such, UV glass, the whole works.
posted by edgeways at 8:33 AM on December 27, 2014

I'm assuming you're like my mom in that you want to keep this around in a file cabinet to take out and look at maybe once a year at most. For paper with fragile media on it my mom's stored them in clear acid-free page protectors, then paperclipped the page protector to another piece of paper with details written on the other side like date and what it is and who it involves. These get filed into relevant folders.

Since you're dealing with fabric I agree, stitch it onto a backing of some sort. Maybe a thick canvas that will easily hold its shape. If you know somebody who embroiders this seems like the perfect project to embroider the grandson's name and maybe birthdate on the canvas, but that's just what I'd want to do. You could affix a card tag with the information, too. Slip that all into a page protector with a clean paper backing. You could get a ring binder and page protectors that have holes on one side, and keep all grandson-relevant things in the binder. The key here is archival quality page protectors, and storing it in the dark.
posted by Mizu at 8:57 AM on December 27, 2014

My daughter handpaints onto canvas shoes, t-shirts and aprons using acrylic paints (amongst other things), and she recommends Josonya's Textile Medium for your potholders.

It's usually mixed with the paint, but can also be painted over existing paint. She says it will look glossy but will prevent it from fading, cracking and peeling, and if heatset properly, can be gently washed and dried without damage.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 3:07 PM on December 27, 2014