Christmas Handprint Crafts (Three Easy Ideas!)

Christmas handprint crafts are a fun favorite with small children! Make special memories with these three cute and easy craft ideas.

Skills Required: Beginner. These projects are going to be very easy for adults, and children can do them with help. Most of what you’ll be doing for your Christmas handprint crafts is painting. Pretty simple!

One of my most treasured items from when I was young is a plaque I made using buttons (you can see it here). I don’t love or care about a lot of material items, but anything I made as a child is dear to me.

That’s why I love handprint crafts, especially for the holidays! They are so sweet and cute and they are the memories that last forever!

Christmas Handprint Crafts

If you love Christmas crafts for kids, you’re going to love these three ideas including a Santa handprint Christmas ornament, a handprint tree, and a snowman family plaque.

Salt Dough or Air Dry Clay?

A lot of Christmas handprint art requires dough or clay to imprint the child’s hand. I’ve got two options for you.

First, you can make the salt dough recipe listed in the Santa handprint tutorial below. You’ll need to bake it, but you probably have a lot of the ingredients in your kitchen already.

The benefit of using air dry clay is that you don’t have to mix anything. You can buy it in the kids’ craft section of your craft store or online.

You can also keep the clay in the container until you want to use it, which is nice. No baking is involved – the clay dries over a few days, as the name implies.

Are you ready to get the holiday craft ideas? Keep reading to learn how to make them! Which of these Christmas handprint crafts is your favorite?

Santa Handprint Ornament

Gather These Supplies

• Mod Podge Sparkle
• Mod Podge Satin
• Fake whipped cream (white) – optional
• FolkArt Multi-Surface Acrylic Paint – Apple Red, Charcoal Black, Light Flesh, Pink Rouge, Titanium White
• Knife
• Paintbrushes – flat brush, detail brush
• Jingle bell
• Wood plaque
• Hot glue gun

For the handprint:

• Flour – 4 Cups
• Salt – 1 Cup
• Warm water – 1.5 Cups
• Mixing bowl
• Rolling pin

Instructions

Mix the flour and salt. Slowly add the warm water. Stir to combine. Knead until soft and pliable.

Add a small amount of flour to your work surface. Roll out the dough. Press your hand into the dough. Use a knife to cut around your hand shape. Bake at 300° for 1.5 – 2 hours. Cool.

Turn the handprint so the fingers are positioned facing down. The fingers will be the beard. Paint the mid-palm/face area with Light Flesh. Paint the fingers, top of the had and tip of the hat with Titanium White.

Paint the hat area Apple Red, With a dry bush, paint cheeks using Pink Rouge. Add an Apple Red nose. Add a moustache with White. Using a detail paintbrush, add eyes and highlights with Charcoal Black. Add a pink mouth under the nose.

If desired, add faux whipped cream paste along the beard, hat rim and tip. Sink a jingle bell into the hat tip (or glue down). Allow to dry for 8 hours.

Paint Mod Podge Sparkle over the beard and moustache area. Allow to dry.

Paint Mod Podge Satin over the hat, sides and face area to seal.

Paint the wood plaque Yellow Citron.

Using the hot glue gun, attach the handprint Santa to the center of the plaque.

PROJECT TIP: To make a hanging handprint ornament, just poke a hole in the top of the ornament prior to baking.

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Believe Christmas Handprint Art

Gather These Supplies

• Mod Podge Satin
• Mod Podge Sparkle
• Wood plaque
• Green paper handprints (various sizes traced with a pencil and cut with scissors)
• Strip of brown paper
• Small nails & hammer
• Bakers twine
• Wood snowflake
• Saying – “Believe”
• Hot glue gun

Instructions

Working on the lower center of the plaque, attach the brown strip of paper to the plaque. This will be the trunk of the tree. Attach by applying Mod Podge to the back of the paper, position on the plaque and smooth to remove any air bubbles.

Begin on the lower portion of the tree with the largest handprints. Attach them with Mod Podge. The fingers should be pointing down.

Work your way up the tree adding more handprints until you reach the top. The smallest handprint should be the top of the tree. Top-coat the entire tree with a layer of Mod Podge.

Add Sparkle Mod Podge to the fingertips to create a frosted look. Allow to dry.

Attach small nails across the tree. Begin at the top and work across the tree until you reach the end. Begin at the top. Tie the twine to the top nail, work your way down the tree, wrapping the string around each nail. Tie off the twine on the last nail.

Using the glue gun, attach the snowflake and saying to the plaque (ours were pre-painted and the snowflake was glittered).

PROJECT TIP: This same technique can be used with fabric to make a holiday toss pillow. Use fabric cut handprints and Fabric Mod Podge to achieve a similar look.

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Snowman Handprint Ornament

Gather These Supplies

• Mod Podge Extreme Glitter
• Glitter Snow Tex paste
• FolkArt Multi-Surface Acrylic Paint – Charcoal Black, Lavender, Lemon Custard, Magenta, Patina, Pink Rouge, Pure Orange, Titanium White, Yellow Citron
• Wood plaque
• Paintbrushes – flat and detail
• Glitter

Instructions

Paint the plaque Patina and allow to dry.

Paint the palm and fingers of a child’s hand with Titanium White and press onto the plaque. Lift hand carefully and wash with soap and water.

Paint Mod Podge Extreme Glitter over the painted handprint.

Use Charcoal Black and the detail brush to paint hats on the snowmen. Add eyes, mouths, and buttons using Black and the end of the paintbrush.

Paint noses with Pure Orange and the detail brush.

Paint scarves using the remaining colors and a flat brush.

Add the faux snow at the bottom of the plaque as shown to act as snow. Sprinkle glitter while still wet and let dry.

Display this wood Christmas craft on your tree or wall!

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Do you love these Christmas handprint crafts? See them in action in the video in this post! All you have to do is press “PLAY”!

Also if you love this Christmas handprint art, I’ve got some handprint ornaments for you! Check those out, and let me know what you think of these ideas in the comments!