1-2-3 Come Make An Adorable Keepsake Ornament With Me

Making fingerprint snowmen, is not my original idea.  Several mail rings I follow were talking about them, so I Googled snowmen fingerprint ornaments and found a dozen or so examples, thus I don’t know who to give credit to. The idea is to paint the top of a child’s hand with white paint and press it on a clear plastic or blue glass ornament. They then turn their fingerprints into snowmen by adding details. 

I know many teachers have 30+ students or teach 2 classes of Y5’s or K, so this could get a bit expensive, as well as tricky sending home something that could possibly break.  I thought why not try this with paper to see how it would turn out and the results were darling, inexpensive and extremely easy for a 4-year-old to work on.  You can jazz them up a bit by adding aluminum foil tops, flat-backed jewels and scrapbook paper hats! My hats are a triangle, square and oval shape, with rectangle brims, and the ornament is a circle, so you can have a mini-shape review and cover a report card standard. (Woo hoo!)  To make this easier, I also painted only the 1st 3 fingers.

Here’s How:

• Make a circle template and run it off on blue construction paper.
• Have children cut out their circle ornament.
• Students write their name on the back.

• Glue a sheet of aluminum foil on cardstock.
• Make an ornament topper template out of cardstock from my master.
• Trace it on the aluminum foil card stock.

• Give each student a topper to cut out.  You may want these pre-cut for younger children, or to expedite the project.
• Students glue the topper to their ornament.
• Hole punch the top and put a reinforcement hole over it.

• Add a yarn tie so they can hang their ornament on the tree.
• Allow children to choose 3 flat-backed jewels and have them stick them across the topper with glue dots.

• Paint students first 3 fingers (4 if they have a small hand) and the very top of their palm with white acrylic paint.
• I use metallic white because it gives an opalescent frosty glow.
• Have students count to 5 before you lift up their fingers.
• Set aside to dry. (Takes about 5-10 minutes.)

• Pre-cut hat pieces. One sheet of scrapbook paper per color, will be enough for an entire class. 
• I chose red, black and green paper.  You can’t really tell on the photo, but the paper is pin dot, striped, and printed.

• Children choose hats and glue them to their snowmen. (Review shapes with them as a mini-lesson.)
• Children use Flair markers to make eyes, noses, mouths, scarves, and buttons on their snowmen.  (Markers: Orange, black, green, red, blue, pink, & purple)

• Just an FYI: Tell your students to use DIFFERENT colors for each snowman’s scarf, and that their eyes should be different than their nose, mouth & buttons or you’ll have some students using one color for everything.
• You might want to let students practice making a snowman on a sheet of scratch paper while their ornament is drying and doodle different designs while they wait, then choose which one they like best.
• Make an example to show them so you have a sample.

Click on the link to view/print the snowman fingerprint ornament pattern.  So that parents will know that these snowmen are made from their child’s fingerprints, I also wrote a poem.  One year we made a different fingerprint piece of art and one mom didn’t have a clue that it was her daughter’s prints until someone happened to mention it.  “I loved it because she made it, now I love it even more!”

I put the color poem in DOC format so you can change the date in case you want to use it every year as an annual ornament activity. Click on the link to view/print the snowman fingerprint poem.  Otherwise, there are two fill-in-the-blank options in the packet. One is in color, the other is in black and white, so your students can color it themselves. 

If you still want to make the handprint idea into a gift, rather than just a paper keepsake. but are worried about the glass aspect of an ornament or want to keep the expense down, why not put their prints on a painted blue tin can and fill with peppermints or put their prints on a baby food jar and insert a tea light and tie a bow around the top, or make it into a picture frame and make the frames out of Popsicle sticks.

I've also made adorable banners by gluing a Popsicle stick to the top of a 4x6 piece of felt. The yarn hanger is glued under the Popsicle stick. These snowman prints would look darling on navy blue felt too.  Once the paint has dried they'd be easy to paint. Hats & scarves can be dabbed on with Q-tips.  These would look sweet suspended from a doorknob, making this a nice January craftivity when things aren't quite so hectic.

If you'd like to make a gift for grandma, ask mommy to donate a potholder.  You can get them in pairs at The Dollar store if you can handle the cost.  These prints would be adorable on those.  The Dollar Store also sells hot pad coasters in pairs in navy, red and dark green.  A Q-tip dabbed in white would add a nice little "blizzard" to round out the snow scene!

Thanks for visiting. I have a bit more shopping to do, so it's time to go warm up the car and brave the hustle bustle.  Wishing you a cozy day filled with wonder.

"Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain." -Ralph Waldo Emerson