Christmas Craft Ideas: Handprint Christmas Tree

We've got our decorations up and the house is full of Christmas. The boy-o has been busy making some Christmas art, and one of them has been hung up in his play corner. We made a Christmas Tree out of his handprints, with his name written in block letters as the "stem" of the tree. I'm really pleased with how well it turned out, and the boy-o had a blast painting.

We simply painted his hand in one colour and stamped all of that colour of handprint, and then switched to the second colour and did all of those prints together. After we finished our specific painting project I just let him have at it with the paint which resulted in lots of smiles. 

This was a super easy craft to make and would be a great gift for those hard to buy for grandparents or aunts/uncles that you don't get to see very often. It also looks really cute framed up on the wall. Just remember to write the date on the back so years from now when you're looking at it again you remember when it was made. 

Craft Time: Handprint Trees

Yesterday we hosted a group playdate at our house and we wanted to do a little sensory play! There were four little boys in total and I thought it would be lots of fun to make handprints trees together, and then each little one could take home a tree with their friends handprints on it. I purchased the materials we would need ahead of time (some paint, and paintbrushes) and I had the other materials already on hand (Sketch/Paint paper, some brown cardstock, glue, and a Sharpie Marker).

I cut out a tree shape with the brown cardstock and glued it to the center of the white sketch/paint paper, leaving lots of room at the top of the tree for the little handprints. I selected five different colours of paint so that each child would have some choice as to which colour they wanted to use. (In reality it was mum choosing at this point!)

We did each boys handprint one at a time, and painted their hand before we/they pressed it onto each of the four papers. As I was painting their hands I was asking them questions like whether it tickled, or if the paint felt cold. Some of the boys liked to close their fist around the brush and squeeze feeling the paint squish around their fingers.

The results were awesome, and after the handprints were all done I wrote each boys name over their hands so that we could all remember whose was whose and keep track of which friends were over that day. We're going to frame ours and hang it up in our play space and later it will get added to the boy-o's memory book as a cool keepsake of our first group playdate at our house! The next time we host I think we're doing to dive into some MAGIC MUD.

Your Turn:

What's your favourite sensory activity to share during playdates?

Creating Keepsakes: Foot Prints

It's no secret that babies grow too fast--one minute they're tiny and totally helpless, and the next minute they're stealing your glasses and crawling away with them shrieking like a total mad man. (or maybe that's just what happens in my house?) Anyway, the bottom line is that it's really nice to make some keepsakes from when they were tiny and little to help you remember later just how tiny and little they really were. 

One of my favourite ways to do that is by getting an imprint of their hands or feet in Salt Dough. When your little one is really little that can be a bit challenging though as you need to press their hand/foot rather hard into the dough to get a good imprint. If this is likely to be an issue for you--have no fear! Rather than press their hand or foot INTO the dough, you can leave a paint print on the dough instead. 

We decided to make a footprint ornament for each of the grandparents for Christmas, and we did ours with blue acrylic paint and Salt Dough. Here's the instructions for making your own Salt Dough keepsake using Acrylic paint:

Ingredients for Salt Dough:

- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1/2 cup water

Directions:

1. Mix together flour, salt and water until dough forms. Add water slowly to make sure you don't over water dough. If dough is too sticky, add more flour.

2. Roll dough out to desired thickness.

3. Apply paint to bottom of child's foot with paint brush and plant their foot firmly on the salt dough, trying to push down each toe to make sure they leave a print.

4. Wash off baby's foot and trim around foot print to remove extra dough. Poke hole through the ornament to thread with string later.

5. Leave ornament somewhere warm to dry (like on your radiator), flipping occasionally. It took two days for us. (We didn't bake ours as is traditionally done because of the paint--but if you wanted to bake before you applied the footprint cook for approx. 2 hours at 250° F)

6. Once the ornament is dry thread a small string or ribbon through the hole and tie! 

Now, you might be thinking to yourself Christmas just ended, why post about this now?? Because you can make all sorts of things out of Salt Dough besides a Christmas ornament and it makes a really great activity for when you're housebound from snow or rain, especially since it uses materials almost everyone already has at home.

Your Turn: What's your favourite way of 

preserving special memories of your little one?