Handprint Santa Keepsake Ornament

Christmas is a time for family traditions!  Creating keepsakes to remind us of these special holidays is also a wonderful way to create new traditions and to create meaningful memories that will can reminisce about for years to come.   

I'm so excited to have one of my dear friends here today to share her darling ornament with us.   

Hi!  My name is Lori Glorioso and I'm so excited to be here with you today.  When I think about the holidays, the word tradition almost always comes to mind. Traditions that I have done since I was little like always having my Great Grandmother “Mee-Ma’s” famous cookies she made for me to leave out for Santa that I now attempt to make with our daughters every year for Santa. Spoiler Alert: They are NEVER as good as hers, but we have fun trying! Another favorite tradition is having fun with the Elf on the Shelf every day for the month of December. They can be so funny!  We also love bundling up in our pajamas and drinking hot cocoa while driving around our neighborhood to see the wonderful sights of lights and decorations. 

This year we made these fun handprint Santa Hand ornaments and it was so much fun.  We decided that this craft is now a must do tradition from here on out!  Not only did we have fun making them, they were bit of a labor of love project that we know will make loved ones in our families happy for many years.   And it will be so fun to see how the size of the girls hands will change from year to year. I hope this new tradition can find its way into your own cozy home and many happy memories will be made. 

Supplies:

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• Air dry clay
• rolling pin
• a straw
• array of paint colors. I used white for Santa’s beard and eyes and eyebrows, black for his eyes, peach for his face, pink for his hat, cheeks and nose, and a darker pink/burnt red for the stars on his hat, but a fun thing about this is that you can use whatever colors you want!
• Pom poms for his hat
• hot glue gun
• ribbon or yarn
• parchment paper
• whatever seasonal YL essential oils you want to use
• knife

Roll out your clay and apply as many drops of oil as you would like and smash it around, play with it, squish it, whatever you like to get those oils really infused in to the clay!

Roll out the clay again and have your kids put their hands on it and press in as much as they can to make an imprint in it. You may have to help really little ones and press their fingers and Palm into the clay to make the imprint.

Use your knife to cut around it as close as possible to your child’s handprint and remove excess clay to the pile. Don’t forget to use your straw to make a hole at the top to later string your ribbon/yarn through.

For extra fun, let the kids blow the small clay piece out of the draw! Just make sure you see where it lands!

Hot glue gun his pom pom on to this hat (it should be the tip of the thumb). String your ribbon/yard through the hole and Santa is ready to go!