spider thumbprints

We made a lot of Halloween thumbprint crafts last year, but this one is a little different than those ones. Obviously, we started with a piece of cardstock, and Claire stamped her thumb a few times. Once the paint was dry, she drew eight (ish) legs on the spiders and added small googly eyes. Then I cut some of my bakers twine to act as the sipder's webby stuff. I stapled the twine at the top of the page, and secured it at the top of the spider with a small spot of glue. I cut out a purple piece of cardstock, and then a slightly smaller piece of orange paper for the flag. Claire wrote the word 'eek' on the paper, and I used double sided tape to attach it to the finished product. These would make really cute Halloween cards.

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello

thumbprint santa tags

Thanksgiving and Halloween have come and gone here in Canada, and we are getting so excited for Christmas. Claire asks every day if we can get our Christmas tree yet, and she's well on her way to learning her second Christmas carol! We've been busy working on Christmas crafts- this is one of the first ones that we did.

The supplies to make these are pretty basic. 

A few tags cut from cardstock

red and cream paint

red and black pen

googly eyes

sequin for the belt (or you could use a small button)

q-tips (we just pulled the cotton off the ends for the hat and beard. Admittedly, I was looking for our cotton balls, but I couldn't find them so we used the q-tips.)

twine to hang the tags (mine is from The Twinery and I love it!)

Sadly I have no pictures from along the way. Paint + toddlers = work fast before the paint covers everything.

Start with the cream colour paint. Have (or help) the child stamp a thumbprint in the middle of the card. Using the red paint stamp a thumbprint on top and underneath of the cream one.

Set aside and let them dry.

Once the tags are dry, add on all of the finishing touches. Use the red pen to draw the smile, arms and legs. Use the black pen to draw the belt. Glue on the eyes, sequin, and cotton. (Roll the cotton off of the q-tips and form ball the the top of the hat. Roll the cotton between your fingers to stretch out for Santa's beard.)

Embellish with some beautiful twine (or ribbon) for the prettiest Christmas gift tags.

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Has anyone else started their Christmas projects? Link them up in the comments, I'd love to see what you're working on!

Linking up with: Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie &  Tatertots and Jello

wee little leprechaun bookmarks

St. Patrick's Day might be a day that goes uncelebrated in some households- but not in mine. My Mom was born and raised in Ireland which means that you better break out the green on March 17! I decided that since I love making these thumb print crafts so much, we would make one just for St. Patrick's Day.

Look at this wee little leprechaun- isn't he cute? 

I love making these crafts on tags, like my snowmen ones here, or the little love bug ones here, but that doesn't really work so much for St. Patrick's Day. SO, we made these larger ones so that we could pass them out to family to use as bookmarks.

To make these you will need:

green, orange, and cream coloured paint
googly eyes
black sharpie
small piece of yellow cardstock
scissors or utility knife to cut the little yellow square
piece of cardstock for the bookmark (we used a very light green)
twine or ribbon for the top of the bookmark

1. using the orange paint stamp a thumprint on the bookmark
2. using the green paint stamp the green thumb print on top of the orange one, set aside to let dry
3. use the pinky to stamp on the face using the cream coloured paint
4. just add on all of the details, googly eyes, smile, and hat detail
5. add a piece of twine or ribbon to the top of the bookmark

Linking up with:Sun Scholars & ABC and 123 Learning  & Molly Moo & Today's Creative Blog & Made by You Mondays @ Skip to my Lou  & Tatertots and Jello & It's A Hodgepodge Life & Somewhat Simple

thumb print snowmen tags

 In the spirit of finding Christmas crafts to make, Claire (and I) made these thumb print snowmen. I've seen the snowmen done before using the whole foot, but I thought that this might be a little cleaner! I cut out some tag shapes using my cricut cutter. (You could use a large circle punch or just freehand it if you don't have a cricut.) Then Claire made the body of the snowmen on the tags ("all by self"). We waited for the snowmen to dry before Claire painted on the hats. I just added a bit of bakers twine through the hole so that we can attach the tags to gifts, or hang them as ornaments on our tree. (I'm pretty sure I won't be able to give any of these away!)