Fall is my favorite. The changing leaves. The cooler weather. The bonfires and hayrides and pumpkin patches. And my birthday, of course. 😉 We decided to sneak into the season a little bit early with these handprint and footprint crafts.
I like to print my designs on card stock since we make multiples of each. You could easily make your own or you can save a step and download printables from my store to use over and over.
We make multiples of each because we give them as gifts for the grandparents, hang one in my office, and frame one for our living room. When Carter was born, I bought these simple white 8×10 frames from the baby section for each set of grandparents and us. I grabbed another one when Charlotte was born this summer. Now everyone has an easy place to display the kids’ art when we update it throughout the year.
Sunflower Footprints
Charlotte’s was pretty simple. Cute little baby feet all the way around to make a sunflower.
Fall Tree Handprint
Carter’s involved a little bit more work. First, we traced his hand on cardboard leftover from a box.
Then we taped both the paper and the hand outline to the counter to prevent any shifting.
After that we brought out the washable paint and he got REALLY excited to find out we getting to use real paint instead of ink/stamps.
We tried painting several different ways and the best results came from cutting kitchen sponges into leaf shapes. As a side note, the green actually made the finished projects look pretty muddy so we opted just to use red, yellow, and orange on the next ones.
Getting between each finger was a little tricky, but using the pointy part of the sponge worked well. If they miss that part, it looks more like a blob than a hand.
Be sure to remove the cardboard outline before the paint dries so it doesn’t tear the paper. I love how bright the red, orange, and yellow are without the green. We started with the darkest red on the bottom and brightest yellow on top.
Seriously, how cute are those?? Now we’re officially ready for fall. If you’re looking for more craft ideas, I’ve shared some of our previous projects here.
