Belly Cast Done!

Finally got this thing done...and my son is a year old. After alot of thought, decided to just smooth it out, put a semi-gloss white coat on it, and just write his birth information on the belly.

I was thinking that I was going to do something crazy and creative (I did go to art school after all), but after looking at it I just went for simple.

Here is what I did:

1. Let it dry/cure. I let mine sit a year...totally don't need to do it that long. As long as it is not super humid, a week should be plenty of time
2. I did a light sanding with a fine grain sanding block, just to get off the really rough stuff.
3. I applied joint compound to the whole cast with my fingers, filling in spots and rubbing it into the texture as I went.
4. Let dry again. Make sure you let it go overnight at least.
5. Sand again. If you still have some bad spots, you can do steps 3 and 4 again.
6. Cast is now ready for painting. Apply a coat of Gesso (primer) to get it ready for what ever else you are going to do. If you are going to decoupage it, you can skip the Gesso.

I applied a semi-gloss white paint (it is actually a house trim paint we had left over from doing the house). I then just took a Sharpie and printed his info on the belly. I didn't trim off the rough edges of mine, since I like it. You can trim them with sharp scissors. I would do it before you add the joint compound.

There are a couple things I want to do for the next one. 1) I want to do it standing up...you can cast the underside of the belly and you don't distort the belly shape at all like you do when you are sitting (mine is a little spread out). 2) I want to put his foot prints inside where he kicked the most. I saw this on another blog, and loved the idea. His feet are too big to do it now. 3) I want to take a picture of my baby inside the cast. I wanted to do this, but somehow we forgot, and they grow so fast.

I have this on top of our entertainment center in the living room. :)