If you’re thinking about adding some homemade ornaments to your Christmas tree, it’s not too late to get crafty.
Last year, I made an adorable salt dough hand-print Santa with my then 3-year-old. That post has been pinned dozens of times on Pinterest, and still proves to be a winner.
I wanted my almost 2-year-old to have something special on the tree, so I had to think up something similar. I could not find how to make a hand-print reindeer anywhere that I liked, so this is my version.
And since I didn’t want a million hand ornaments on my tree, I thought something with fingerprints would be fun for my 4-year-old.
I saw something similar on Pinterest where you could make this ornament with thumbprints from the whole family. However, my ornament has fingerprints from one person.
Dough:
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup or more of water
Knead until ball of dough forms.
Coloring the dough:
Washable kids paint or acrylic will work for coloring the dough. I did not experiment with food coloring, but I’m sure it will work just fine.
- Separate your dough in two bowl if making both ornaments.
- Add paint a little bit at a time. And knead it and work it until the dough changes color and is even distributed.
To make hand-print reindeer ornament:
- Roll out dough, make an impression with hand.
- Parents, use a knife to cut around hand, leaving a border.
- Poke a hole at the top for hanging.
- Bake at 200 degrees for 3 hours. (I like to flip my ornaments over half-way through).
- Paint the antlers using paint markers or a paintbrush. Draw in the mouth.
- Seal the ornament with a gloss finish spray. Let that dry.
- Glue on a googly eye and pom-pom nose. (I used mod podge to glue on eye and nose. If you don’t have googly eyes or pom-poms on hand, you could easily paint on both!)
- Hang!
To make Christmas tree ornament with fingerprint lights:
- Roll out dough, use a Christmas tree cookie cutter for shape.
- Use a sharp edge tool like a knife or chopstick and gently make the string for lights in the dough. This will help you when you paint it later.
- Using each finger, I started with the thumb first on the bottom right light, and press your child’s fingerprint along the light strand.
- Poke a hole at the top for hanging.
- Bake at 200 degrees for 3 hours. (I like to flip my ornaments over half-way through).
- Paint, seal, hang!
A couple of tips that will help make this even easier.
1. I bought acrylic paint markers at Michaels. They help you be precise and are not messy!
2. I used a chopstick to poke the hole.
3. I used a sealer with a gloss finish in a spray can. That was also found a Michaels.
This easy Christmas craft is suitable for kids of all ages. Just keep in mind, if doing the hand-print ornament, the bigger the hand, the heavier the ornament!
