Plaster Disaster

Here is my first tale. My son Bryan turned a year old in June. At his party a good friend of mine Cheryl Amelang gave Bryan a "Baby's Handprint" kit. I just loved the idea of this keepsake, so I was excited to go ahead and get his handprint while he was still young. I set some time aside one day to do our project together of imprinting his little hand for our keepsake. I opened the gift and read the instructions and got started. I opened the plaster package to find out that it was hard as a rock. So I tried to add some water but that did no good. I kept the tin because I knew that I could buy so plaster and I would try again. When I told Cheryl what happened she felt so bad that she ended up getting Bryan another kit. I checked the kit out and the plaster was good. I again set out to do our cute keepsake project together as mother and son. I read and followed the instructions (well I thought I did) and the plaster was like milky soup. Confused and a bit disappointed I racked my brain on what I could use to thicken the plaster. CORN STARCH!!! I tried a little bit out and it seemed to be working. I thought I was brilliant for thinking of this. I kept adding corn starch little by little until I had the consistency I wanted. I quickly put the corn starched plaster in the tin and pressed Bryan's little hand onto the plaster to find out that it had already hardened. I raced to the sink and added water and tried to soften it again with again no luck. At this point I was pretty frustrated and chipped all of the plaster out of the tin so I could save this tin as well and just start over. I went to Wal-Mart, strictly for the purpose of the plaster, and bought a box of plaster. I once again set aside some time to try this again. I thought how can I mess this up? Well I did. I started mixing the plaster with the water and it was to soupy so I added more plaster and more plaster until it was to hard. So I dumped that batch in the trash and determined to get this right I tried it again with more knowledge now of what I needed the plaster consistency to be. I made up another batch and this time it was looking good, so I put the plaster in the keepsake tin and got Bryan ready for his sweet little hand print. I strategically placed Bryan's hand over the plaster and pressed. What do babies do when you place their hands in something squishy? They squish it!!!! Screaming NO NO NO NO I quickly wiped his hands of and fixed the plaster and tried it again, and again, and again, and again, gettign no where but the same squishy results. By this time the plaster had hardened and it was just a ball of squish in the tin. Reluctantly I succumbed to the plaster winning. I threw the tin in the trash, put the plaster in the craft closet and shut the door. Now I sit here blogging about my plaster disaster. Maybe one day I will try again for that cute little keepsake that Bryan and I will do together.