HANDmade Christmas Tree:

I love creating. I LOVE spending time with my 2 littles (4 & 2 years old). They love painting. Ergo perfect Christmas activity! So let’s go!

Supplies:
-8×10 canvas ($3.99 for pack of 2 from Hobby Lobby. I used a 40% off coupon so they were $2.40 which means they cost $1.20 a piece-awesome!)
-foam brush
-Green paint-for tree
-assorted paint colors-for ornaments
-brown paint-for tree trunk if you want one 🙂
-Star sticker
-red paint pen
-ribbon (optional)
-cute little hands you could hold forever (mandatory)

Steps:
1.paint both of their hands green

2. Place their hands-one at a time-down onto the canvas. My tree has 3 layers…my 4 year olds’ hands are the bottom *branches*, my 2 year olds’ hands are the middle *branches* and then I did one of my 2 year olds’ handprints for the top of the tree, overlapping handprints as we went.

3. Then have them dip their fingers in different colored paints and place them on the tree to make ornaments.
3.5 Try not to be controlling and tell them where it looks *good* to put another ornament or what colors to use and let them have fun and decorate the tree as they want to!! (SOOOO hard for me! haha!)

4. Place a sparkly silver (or any color you want!) foam sticker on the top!

5. I wanted to add some meaning to our gift, so I included a quote from one of our favorite Christmas movies-How the Grinch Stole Christmas that used the words ‘HANDS’ to tie in the handprints. I just used a red paint pen to write it on.

“Christmas day is in our grasp so long as we have hands to clasp.”-Dr. Seuss

6. And just because I have to have a little embellishment on anything I do :), I added a few bows I tied from some red ribbon I had on hand and used a glue dot to attach them to the canvas.

7. When I was putting my red ribbon away, my jar of green ribbon was sitting right next to it, and this ric rac was just begging me to use it, so I obliged her.

Because there was already a lot going on on the front, and I didn’t want to distract from the kids work of art, I used the ric rac on the top and outer sides of the canvas and along the bottom of the quote.

I think it frames the picture nicely!

8. Lastly I tied a ribbon around the front of the canvas-for gift giving purposes :)-and was done!

Your very own HANDmade Christmas tree!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Thank you SOOOO much Michelle for having me today and thank YOU for reading along! Stop by my place anytime, I’d love to meet ya!