The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

Salt Dough Handprint Christmas Tree Ornaments

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Create some cute handprint Christmas tree ornaments using green sparkly salt dough and paints! These are lovely as a little keepsake and memento of how the kids have grown. I do love handprint keepsakes!

To create these christmas tree handprints from salt dough I thought we would try to colour the dough before cooking for a change. We have made blue and green stars and christmas tree ornaments in the past and knew that salt dough does take colour really well before drying. Click here to read our full instructions for making salt dough and simply add green colouring and a large sprinkling of green glitter at the kneading stage. Simple!

Once the dough was coloured, kneaded and glitter added, i rolled it out and formed it into flat circles. The girls each placed their hands in the middle and I poked two holes at the top of each one, using a straw. The holes are vital for being able to thread twine through and hang them up afterwards. They went into the oven at about 100 degrees C (around 200 F) for 2-3 hours. When they were cool I painted inside the handprint with a darker shade of green paint (just ordinary washable paint) then left them to dry again.
When dry I set them out as little invitations to create, using gold and red paints, cotton buds and fabric stars to decorate them as trees.They dipped the ends of the cotton buds into paint and carefully dabbed bauble shapes over the trees. Then they stuck the fabric stars to the top using self-adhesive glue dots (but any type of strong glue would work.) Pop decorated Baby Bean’s for her and did a lovely job of it!
Then we threaded some red and white twine through the holes, wrote their names and ages on the back with a permanent pen and now they are hanging up in our home! These would also make such a sweet gift for grandparents.

 

Love handprint ideas? See more here:
  This activity is good for:
    • Sensory: messy and tactile exploration
    • Motor skills: kneading/ squishing/ rolling/ flattening/ poking/ squeezing/ treading
    • Maths: weighing quantities/ counting/ capacity (full, empty)
    • PHSE: working independently
    • Creativity: painting/ modelling/ sculpting

 

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Comments

  2. roxi says

    this is a great idea, i will try it with my daughter for sure…maybe its easier if the hand is already painted with green, so once u make the handprint there is also the colour?? and the globes can be make with finger??

  3. Nicky says

    I was going to do some salt dough decorations today actually!! What a fab idea, especially to add colour to the dough before cooking! Fabulous!!