Christmas Handprint Reindeer and Wreath Craft

I love making gifts and decorations using my kids' hand prints! Here are two fun and easy ideas to make for Christmas.

Start by tracing your child's hand and cutting it out. You might want to make one really good hand print on a piece of card stock or cardboard so you can reuse it for other projects. Just be sure to make a new hand print every once in a while so you can still  capture your child's hand growing!!

Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer Puppet

Here's what you'll need:

brown construction paper
craft sticks
googly eyes
red craft pom pom
brown paper lunch sack

Use your hand print pattern to cut out two hands from brown construction paper. Attach them to the back of your paper lunch sack - I used glue dots (LOVE those!). Be sure the thumbs are facing together so your "antlers" are symmetrical.  If the hand print is larger and kind of flimsy, secure a craft stick to the back to keep it from flopping over. Again, I used glue dots. My son's hand prints (age 2) were small enough to stand up straight on their own.

Have your child make Rudolf's face using googly eyes and a red craft pom pom.  They could also use crayons or markers to draw it on, too.  My kids had so much fun playing with these little puppets and they were so fast to make! They ran around making their reindeer fly and then pretended to be elves taking care of Santa's reindeer. It was a very fun project!

While they were playing with their new puppets, I busied myself creating another holiday hand print keepsake:

Hand Print Paper Wreath

Cut out multiple hand prints using your "handy" hand print template. (hehe) You'll need about eight hand prints from each child, all cut out of green construction paper. You can use different shades of green, or some green-patterned scrapbook paper would be really cute too! When you have enough cut out, lay them out to create a circle, careful to overlap them all just the same. For my wreath, I used hand prints from both of my kids so it is double layered, but you can make just a single layer wreath too.

Carefully glue the hand prints together, using a glue stick or - you guessed it - glue dots. Finish it off with a simple gift bow.  I chose to display mine on the wall by my kitchen table so I just used rolled up scotch tape to hang it.  You can also use a hole punch to tie a ribbon to it and hang it that way!
Need your wreath to be a little more sturdy? Attach a paper plate to the back with it's middle cut out. For a similar wreath I made with my daughter last year, click HERE.