Some of the best Christmas gifts are the ones that create memories. I chose those to include here – as time goes on an years fly by, these gift become more and more precious.
If you don’t have a tradition of making something like the Wreath or a little Christmas tree from your child’s handprints for grandparents yet – give it some serious consideration. You can create a sonderful tradition and these gifts have a very minimal cost attached to them!
Make a Wreath from Your Children’s Handprints
You will need:
- Green Construction Paper
- Piece of red construction paper or a red ribbon
- Pencil, scissors, glue
- Glitter or glitter glue
Instructions:
- Trace your child’s hand on a piece of green construction paper.
2.     Cut out the hand print.
3.     Make about 10 paper hands for each wreath.
4.     Glue the hand prints together in a wreath shape, with the wrists overlapping a little bit.
Glue on a red ribbon bow (or make one from red construction paper and decorate your wreath with glitter or glitter glue.
Make a Christmas Tree from Your Children’s Handprints
You will need:
- Green construction paper
- Brown construction paper
- Yellow construction paper
- Large piece of paper or cordstock for background (use colour you like)
- Pencil, scissors, glue
- Glitter or glitter glue and paper ornament to decorate the tree with
Instructions:
- Trace the child’s hand on a piece of green construction paper.
- Cut out the hand print and fold the wrist over.
- Make a lot of paper paper hands (the number you’ll need depends on the size of your tree). If this is a class project, you may want to put each child’s name on his or her hand print.
- Draw a tree shape on a large piece of paper.
- Cut out a small piece of bronw paper in a rectangular shape – that will be the tree trunk – and glue it in place.
- Glue the hand prints together in a tree shape, gluing the folded part of the wrist to the background. Start at the bottom of the tree. Starting with the second row, make the fingers overlap the next hand a little bit.
- Cut out a yellow star for the top of the tree. Glue it on the tree.
- Write a Christmas message around the tree. Decorate your tree with glitter, glitter glue, or paper ornaments.
Hand and Footprint Reindeer
You will need:
- Brown and tan (or orange) construction paper
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Glue
- Googly eyes
Instructions:
- Trace around the child’s foot using brown construction paper. This will be the reindeer’s head.
- Trace around the child’s hands using tan construction paper. These 2 pieces will be the reindeer’s antlers.
- Glue the handprint “antlers” to the top of the reindeer. Add a bright red paper nose, a paper (or drawn) mouth, and googly eyes (or paper eyes) to the reindeer’s head.
You can now decorate your house for Christmas with these cute reindeers. Don’t forget to put the child’s name and age on the back of the reindeer!
Child’s Handprint Poem
Here is a really easy and very precious gift to make! You can do it on a piece of fabric and write the poem below the handprint, frame it and create a beautiful memory!
My Handprint
Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small
And always leave my fingerprints
On furniture and walls
But everyday I’m growing big
And soon I’ll be very tall
Then all my little handprints
Will be hard to recall
So here’s a special handprint
Just so that you can say
this is how my fingers looked
when I placed them here today.
Here is a little variation on the above idea:
Using fabric paint, make a footprint upside down on a T- shirt for the body, then two hand prints on each side for the wings… Then add a golden halo at the heel (angels head). Then write: “Grandma’s Little Angel” on the shirt. You can also write each of the kids’ names and ages at the time, with the year in a corner.
Another idea – buy a plain canvas bag and put Grandma’s Angel design on it!
Hope you have fun making these memories – and remember that your comments, input and suggestions are always welcomed and appreciated!
