3D Handprint Snowflakes

Mommy Crusader Winter Crafts Leave a Comment

It snowed here – big, fat, beautiful flakes. I love the way snow looks as it is falling to the ground. I also love doing snowflake crafts with my kids. This year, I thought we could make different types of snowflakes as a family and hang them in our windows. This first week, we made 3D handprint snowflakes.

This craft is simple — although it takes two separate sessions. The first session involves painting and printing the children’s handprints and applying glitter. The second session involves cutting out the handprints, building  the 3 dimensional shape, and affixing the ribbon so they can be hung. Neither session takes very long to be completed. One snowflake can be ready for hanging in less than a half an hour.

Materials

White craft paint
Card stock in preferred color (however, the darker the cardstock, the better the handprints show up)
A foam paint brush
Craft ribbon
Scissors
Glitter (which my children call sparkles)
Cellophane tape

What to do:

Creating the handprints:

The first thing to do is to make sure the child, whose hand you are imprinting, has pushed up his/her shirt sleeves.

After that, simply apply the paint to the child’s hands, one at a time, and press the hand (paint side down) firmly onto the cardstock. Lift the child’s hand straight up and quickly from the paper. Even with older children, it works better if the adult controls the movement of the hand. Sprinkle glitter on the handprint, and then shake the excess glitter off. I shook the glitter off into the paint we were using, to add a bit of texture.

Our Kindergartener thought the paint felt squishy and cold and the brush tickled.

Press the handprints so the heal of the palms are slightly overlapping. We placed the hands and 90 degree angles, and used three hand imprints to complete the design.  After the hands were all printed, the cardstock was set aside to dry.

Cutting out the handprints:

After the handprints are done drying, it’s time to add the “crystal” structure. This involves adding geometric shapes to the outline of the handprints. Snowflakes are crystals, so triangles, squares, pentagons, and other polygon shapes work well. Using soft, round lines will not create a snowflake essence. Older children can help with this part. However, for our 3D snowflake, I created the outside designs.

Once the designs have been drawn, they need to be cut out. Again, older children with good fine motor control can complete this step. My children are still developing their fine motor control, and I didn’t want to redo the handprints. So, I cut out the handprints as well.

Creating the 3D shape:

Now, it’s time to assemble the snowflake. How this is done will depend on how many sets of handprints have been created. I took two and placed them back to back. Next, I cut a straight line ¾ of the way through two other sets and slipped them onto the first two. Then I used our largest set of handprints and cut a “T” in the center of the hands. Then, I slipped the other handprint sets into the “T”. I was using the “T” to stabilize the shape of the first two sets of handprints.

How the snowflake looks hanging over our dining table.

Finally, I used cellophane tape to support the structure of the snowflake as needed, tied a ribbon through the snowflake, and hung it up.

This was a fun, whimsical, and easy way to bring a touch of winter inside — while staying warm.

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