Christmas Hand-print Crafts

With four kids and a hectic schedule, it’s hard to find time to do as much art with my kids as they’d like. That is why I am a HUGE fan of these simple yet adorable Christmas crafts. In about an hour (or less) you can make half a dozen adorable hand-print crafts. Hand-print crafts mark a moment in time….forever capturing those little hands. I hope you’ll take some time over the next few days to make some holiday memories and adorable art with your kids! Merry Christmas and happy crafting!

1. Hand-print Wreath

Start with a large piece of paper. Paint your child’s hand green, and stamp it in a circle to form a wreath. Next, have your child create berries using their fingerprints! You can add a bit of red glitter to make this extra special. Add a paper bow if you’d like. Cut around your child’s hand-prints when they are dry to create your wreath!

2. Hand-print Santa

Trace your child’s hand onto a piece of paper. Have your child keep their fingers together, with the thumb out at an angle. (It works to ask them to make an “L.”) Cut around the hand-print. Add a bit of red paint and a cotton ball to create Santa’s hat. Add a few googly eyes, and a few more cotton balls, and you have Mr. Claus himself!

3. Hand-print Reindeer

Paint your child’s hand brown, and have them stamp it onto a piece of paper. Add a bit of black paint on the four fingers to create “hooves.” Add a googly eye and a dot of red paint to the thumb to create Rudolph’s face. We added a sparkly pipe cleaner to create antlers. You could also simply draw or paint antlers if you didn’t have any pipe cleaners. My kids REALLY liked doing this one!

4. Hand AND Foot-print Reindeer

(This little guy couldn’t fit all the way in my scanner, but you get the idea!) Paint both of your child’s hands brown, and have them stamp them on a piece of paper to create antlers. Paint one of your child’s feet brown, and have them stamp it close to the antlers to create the reindeer face. Add a few googly eyes, and a red pom-pom or paint to create the nose. (You can’t see it, but his nose is glowing…like a light bulb!)

5. Finger-print Candy Cane

(I’ll admit that I wanted to scan in the example I made for my son, BUT this is what it will look like if your 4 year old makes this!) Have your child use their finger-prints to create a candy cane. Alternate red and white prints to get the desired effect. (In hind-sight, this would have worked better on black paper, but art is about having fun and making memories, NOT about being “perfect.”)

6. Hand-print Christmas Tree

Paint your child’s hand green, and stamp it in a pyramid shape to create a Christmas tree. (This could be as large as you like! You could create a giant version like my Hand-print Advent Calendar, or a smaller version shown above.) Your kids can decorate their tree with ornaments made from their finger-prints. My kids couldn’t resist getting to play with our big bag of “doo-dads.” They also added their own little embellishments like presents underneath and a star on top.

Remember that doing art with your kids is really about having fun and letting THEIR creativity and ideas shine through. Nothing needs to look a certain way or be uniform. Let their imaginations run wild, and allow them to add things that make them happy. Don’t worry about creating a beautiful display…just let them have fun! (As a side tip, don’t pull out the paints on a day when you’re short on patience or feeling stressed.) Take an hour this week over winter break, and spend some time crafting with your kids. Make some cocoa, throw on your favorite Christmas album, and make some memories….and some great hand-print art!