I wanted to make a special gift for both sets of grandparents for Christmas that was meaningful and made by my kids.
A couple of years ago I made quilted handprint wall hangings, and another year we painted canvases with my kids’ footprints.
This year I knew I wanted to use the kids’ handprints, so this is what we made.
I got the idea from Naptime Decorator but made some changes in that I used a canvas and didn’t try to freehand the tree.
I purchased three 11×14 artist canvases for $4 each at Big Lots. This was enough so that both sets of grandparents could have one and I would have one for our wall as well.
The first step was to paint the tree on the canvas.
Instead of free-handing it, I printed out this tree outline and had Julia use a pencil to trace it onto the canvases.
Once the trees had been traced we painted the trees with a small paintbrush and brown acrylic paint.
When the trees were dry, I painted each child’s hand with a specific color and a foam brush. Then, we pressed their handprints to the canvas.
Have you ever wondered how many people it takes to get a newborn’s handprint? Apparently, the number is three. At least that is how many of us it took to put my nephew’s handprint on the canvas for my parents.
Poor little guy was sleeping so soundly and then his Aunt Jackie woke him up by putting paint on his hand and squishing it onto a canvas.
What kind of woman, who has 5 kids of her own, wakes a sleeping baby to do a craft project?
Oh, I guess a woman like me. Umm. Anyway…
Here are the finished canvases. I used a sharpie to write the phrase on the canvases. Too bad my handwriting isn’t fancier. 🙂
I love having mine hanging in my living room and I think the grandparents were happy with them as well.
