Belly Casting in Our Home!

Good Morning Readers,

I apologize that I have not been active in some months it has truly been a trying time for my family. We have battled hyperemisis gravidarum, gallbladder surgery, gestational diabetes, symphosis pubis dysfunction, and bed rest not to mention the kids starting school and strep throat going around. We still have a few weeks left to go before our daughter makes her appearance and it is certainly exciting!

We decided to try belly casting as this is our last pregnancy and child, we want to make our own door hanger for the hospital, have an item to use for newborn pictures, and hang it up for decoration above her crib.

The first thing we did was go to Babies R Us and purchase the Pearhead belly casting kit:
Babies R Us
Amazon

The kit contains the vaseline cream to protect your body, the plastic sheet to help with messiness, gloves (that do run small), 5 rolls of wrap, and a sanding sheet. What you will need is scissors and a tub of warm water. That is just to begin with after you sand it you will need to get the protective paint and anything else you want to decorate it with. (Follow me and check back later for another update of us decorating the cast)

Once you have your kit decide where you want to do the casting at and how you want to be in position. Since I am on bedrest we of course chose our bed and to have me laying down. The process took a total of about 2 1/2 hours for us and that was me being completely still the entire time. We started out by laying the plastic sheet over our bed and draped it over onto the floor for any spills.

Now that the sheet is layed out it is time to rub the protective cream everywhere the wrap may touch you as that will protect your skin and make it easier to peel off when done. We found using one glove and one bare hand worked best for getting the wraps in place. The gloves do run small so if you have larger hands you may want to go purchase a pair.

With the cream on you and you in position it is time to start cutting the wraps, dipping in water and placing on the body.

 We started at the middle of my stomach over my belly button went down and then back up to my chest. The wraps need to overlap eachother and by the end you should have 3 to 4 layers of wraps on you. Do not worry about the edges as you can sand that down later; however, try to make it all as smooth as possible to help with sanding later and keep it thick. (I held a mirror up to help my husband see the other side and make it even as possible) This part of the process took about an hour to complete.

When all the wraps are used up the instructions states to let sit for 5-10 min to dry; however, it was about an hour before we pulled the cast off me and we had 2 fans blowing on me. We waited until we could touch the cast and not have any specks on our hands and when we could touch the side of it at the edge and it not cave at our fingertips. Thankfully we had a television in front of us to entertain us during this part of the process.

Once the cast is dry and you pull it off then you need to set it aside for 1 day to make sure it is hardened all the way through. We chose to place our cast in our master bathroom where there is less risk of it getting broken. It is very light and could easily break!

Keep posted for an update of when we sand it and decorate it for our daughter!

Thanks for following,

Mander Rocha