Since E arrived I’ve been watching special moments slip by. Her first roll, sitting up, crawling and, in the not too distant future, her first tooth. I admit it is a challenge having three aged three and under, and when they’re throwing toast at each other across the breakfast table or sitting on each other’s heads I might be caught wishing they were a bit older and more responsible, but I know that at some point I’m going to look back at this time and wish I’d somehow managed to preserve it. I love the idea of collecting things to remind me of my squishy babies, from photographs and handprints to first shoes and my favourite newborn sleepsuits. When Hold Upon Heart asked me if I’d like to review some of their fingerprint jewellery in return for a discount it was perfectly timed as I’d been wondering what else I could do as a keepsake. It was also lovely to read the story behind the company on their website – like me they are a family of twins and a singleton. They decided to set up their own business as a way of creating the perfect work-life balance.
After looking at their products, it was fantastic to see they offered a few options for people with multiple children. Single charms are great if you have one child at a time and you can easily add to them each time you have another baby, but when you want to get a group of keepsakes in one go it make sense to go for something a bit different.
I almost went for a gorgeous stacking necklace with three hearts of different sizes laying over each other, but in the end I chose a sweetie bracelet with three different charms (£135 for bracelet and a teeny tiny charm, £35 per additional charm).
Hold Upon Heart’s fingerprint kits arrived with little pots of white and blue putty. There were some fantastic instructions that showed exactly what to do to get the best print possible (and these will be uploaded as video instructions on their website soon too). The balls of blue and white putty need to be mixed together until the colour is even, and then you place the child’s finger into the putty and press down firmly, then lift the finger out. For each of the kids there were two sets of the putty, so I could take two prints. This meant Melanie from Hold Upon Heart could decide which one was the best. It also meant if one went horribly wrong I had a back up, which was very reassuring!
Surprisingly, the hardest part wasn’t getting the print (that bit was easy!), it was keeping the boys away from the finished putty while it set! The boys wanted to look at the print straight away and touch it, so I had to use distraction techniques to keep it safe. Once they were set, I put them into one of the little pots, sealed the lid and popped them back into the prepaid envelope. The hardest one to get was E as she didn’t understand what we were doing and kept trying to pull her arm away. As the instructions advised, I made sure I did hers when she was settled, and I put her in her high chair so that I could focus on getting the print rather than trying to keep hold of her.
In the end I managed to get six really good prints, so it really wasn’t as hard as I’d been expecting! I popped them all into the envelope and posted it off.
A couple of weeks later, look what arrived! It came wrapped up in tissue paper and sealed with heart stickers in a presentation box. It’s perfect, shiny and incredibly beautiful!
I’d let Melanie from Hold Upon Heart chose which three charms to use and she chose perfectly. I was absolutely amazed to see they’d managed to engrave my children’s full names on the back of each one, as the longest name is 10 characters long! But all of the names are written on the backs perfectly and don’t look cramped. I had also been a bit worried that the charms would jangle and get in the way when I was wearing it, but they’re the perfect size – large enough so you can see what they are but not so large that they are cumbersome.
My bracelet’s first outing was to my sister in law’s wedding and it went with my outfit perfectly. I absolutely love it and had so many compliments on it!
If you are looking for a special keepsake or a gift for a birthday, anniversary or special occasion I can really recommend Hold Upon Heart. They also offer a range of other keepsakes and gifts from their online shop, including cufflinks, mugs and name plates.
You can find them on Facebook or Twitter. If you do decide to buy something from them please let them know that you heard about them from my blog.
*I was given a discount on the sweetie bracelet in return for reviewing the item. All opinions are genuine.
The above tips are really very good and explain to making fingerprint jewellery. The above snaps added in this blog are looking so pretty and creative . Really good stuff.