Embroidered hand prints

I am on my way, right now, to visit family for the week. It will be a fun and busy week, as we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving, early Christmas, and participating in a wedding shower for my sister. Whew.
I'm not very good about getting gifts made ahead of time (or even on time, for that matter), but I did manage to create a keepsake for my parents and grandparents that I am pretty excited about. Simple, but sweet.
I was inspired by this embroidery project at A Number of Things (via Kelly at Almost Frugal-who kindly included my clothespin dolls in her list of handmade holiday gifts).
Alice embroidered the outline of her son's hand which he had traced himself. While my kids aren't really up for that yet, I thought it would be a great way for me to capture their prints. I've never done the traditional plaster prints or even painted ones.
I traced their hands on paper, cut out the shapes, then traced those onto my fabric (you can get fabric transfer paper, but for an outrageous price). Next, I embroidered them all inside a 12" hoop. I kept it simple, with just their initials and the year. I painted the hoops (I didn't have a chance to photograph the other one which is designed a bit differently) so they could be hung as is, keeping enough extra fabric behind that they could be pulled out and framed later, if need be.
My kids were excited to see their hand prints sewn into the fabric and liked the thought that next Christmas they'll be able to put their hands up next to the prints and see how they've grown.
This was my first time to embroider anything. I'm definitely going to do more of it.

Update: I've answered some of your questions about this project and given you some embroidery instruction links here.