Black Cat Scraps- Turkeys!

       Shiori is my almost 4 year old (4 in Feb) and we have been doing finger painting since she was 1. On her first birthday we mad hand and feet prints for keepsakes. She loves this and I absolutely love doing these kinds of projects with her because I can see her little mind working and I get to witness and be a contributor to her development. She was telling me all about the colors and then telling me that the paint bottles were different animals. So cute. I can tell that 3 1/2 years old and older would be much easier to direct than the younger ones. That is if you want to have the had prints in the smeared fashion and steady print.

Some of the paints used were from Making Memories and the others i would just classify as the average acrylic paint you can get from your craft store.

 

            With these gorgeous prints it is often difficult to muster up the courage to cut them out. Especially when it is your little girls hand prints. They almost feel irreplaceable even though she will always be your little girl, she is growing. If you can convince yourself that you can make hand prints every day for the rest of her life if you want and remember she has a sister... you can make these really neat keepsakes for the rest of the family to enjoy. Cutout the hand prints, glue them down on pattern paper covered cardstocks, add a gobble (I call it, the strange red skin that dangles from their chins, if they have chins) and a beak. To really top it off, draw two lines coming down from the body and then draw a tripod at the end of the leg, to make feet with toes. Add a sentiment to the card like "Gobble Gobble Gobble" or "Thankful for you". Also add somewhere on or in the card the date and name of the hand print (best put this on the front though. If the card is on display or in a picture frame you will want that part showing.

          If you have two hand prints that have the fingers spread you can layer them and make it look like the turkey has more feathers. Use lots of colors and different application methods to ensure a wide variety of beautiful impressions. Make your kids hand your stamp. 

Tip: Go easy on the dark colors if you add them in with the rest of the colors, it could muddy it down rather than add in attraction.

I also used white Cardstock to do the hand prints on. I chose this because i wanted the paper to be sturdy so when I cut out and attach i will only have to put a small amount of tape runner and it will stay down better.

Cardstock seems to be more absorbent and the art work will dry faster.

 

This one here is my husbands favorite, with the fingers spread. I think because it looks so much like her hand.

Enjoy this video on making these beautiful hand impressions! There is no video for making the card because they are so simple. I will say that I used the red paint to paint the gobble chin cut out and the orange paint for the triangle beaks. I put a drop on the paper and then use a small piece of paper to spread it evenly thin.