Holiday Handprint Ornaments

For my craft project, I decided I wanted to do a handprint ornament since it was Cameron's first Christmas. Starting out, I was only going to make one for our tree, but after some thought, I decided to do some more for some other family members.



I found an example somewhere on the internet of how to make these, but now I can't remember where it is at. It's neither here nor there since I pretty much winged it anyway. :) So here is what you will need for this project...

• Crayola air-dry clay
• Paint (I used Making Memories "Daiquiri" and some regular white craft paint)
• Paint sponges and brushes
• A paper plate
• A sheet or two of foil
• A sharpie and ink pen
• Ribbon
• A super cute little assistant

Ok, so first thing you are going to want to do is take some of your clay out and put it on a sheet of foil. The first time I did this, I did it on my craft mat. It worked ok and was easy to clean, but it was hard to peel the clay off once I cut out my shapes. I used foil the second time around and it worked awesome!

Since I don't have a circle cookie cutter, I used a mug to make my circular shapes. Now, I will warn you this was almost too small of a circle for my six month old son's hand, so if you have an older child, I would recommend using a bowl and making a plaque instead. Still cute, and the grandparents could keep it out all year 'round.

After you get your ornaments cut out, you'll need to lasso your assistant and get his/her handprint embedded into that circle. I went ahead and peeled off my circles before I got Cam's handprint. To actually get his handprint I held the clay in my hand while I pressed his chubby little hand down onto the clay. If you have older kids, it will probably be easier. Cameron and I had it out on this part. He did NOT want to have his hand print put into this clay.



Here is what our ornaments looked like after we were done hand-printing them. Notice I put them on paper plates to dry. I also used plastic sandwich baggies. They worked equally as well. Ideally, you would use wax paper, but I didn't have any of that so I improvised. :) Also, I used the head of an ink pen to make the little holes that I put the ribbon through.

Cute, huh?! :) The clay container says to let it dry at least 24 hours, but I think I waited 2 or 3 days. They were nice and hard once I started to paint them. I used a sponge brush (is that what you call it? I'm not artsy...) to paint my base blue color on. After it dried, I decided the hand print just didn't stand out enough so I went and bought some white paint and filled in the handprint with that. Looked so much better!



I just die every time I see it. SO CUTE! (Even if I do say so myself!) And it really was THAT easy, I swear! It just took a little bit of time for them to dry.



I put the ribbon through the hole and then added Cameron's details on the back so we (and our parents and grandparents) don't forget! This is where my sharpie came into the picture. :)



If you have any questions for me, leave them for me in the comments or send me an email and I will answer!

Originally posted to my Cameron Crazy Mom blog. Brought here courtesy of me. :)