toddler making Christmas cards?

[Oliver's Mama]

I've always just bought Christmas cards, and last year did the Walgreens photo card thing, but I was thinking of having ds help make Christmas cards this year. He's only 14 months right now, so I was thinking, maybe taking blank cards and have him do a fingerpaint on the cover, then I'd trim it off with a border or something, then write a message inside. I can't decide if people would see it as extremely cute and thoughtful, or extremely tacky. I'm hoping it would be well-received.
Has anyone done something like that that turned out nice?

[AfricanQueen99]

I posted this in Frugality and Finances - you could easily do it on paper:

* Take an ornament (I used blue, but any color would work) and put your child's full hand (palm and fingers) in white paint.
* Place their full hand (with fingers spread) on the ornament - imagine they're "cupping" it in the palm of their hand.
* Let dry (I used a couple of egg cartons so the paint wouldn't get smudged by rolling around on the table).
* Imagine that each fingertip is the head of a snowman (my kid was around 7-8 months when I did this so her tiny thumb sort of became ground-like, but if your kids are older their thumb could also be a snowman) and use colored paint to make a little scarf and brown/black paint to make a little set of eyes/nose/mouth (I used paint pens).
* Round two of drying.
* Print off the little poem, punch a hole in it, attach it to ornament with ribbon.

Super easy, but super messy. If I had to do it again we would have all been naked and outside (!!).

Oh, our ornaments were those glass ones (not really glass, but very breakable) so I put them in boxes shaped for Chinese food with a bit of tissue and they all made it to our assorted events or via USPS.

Good luck. I even turned it into a playdate and had glue/glitter/ribbon for the older kids that showed up. Somehow it's easy to deal with paint all over my dining room table when there are playdate sweets involved.

Here's the poem earlier in that same thread:
These aren't just snowmen as anyone can see.
I made them with my hand, which is a part of me.
Now each year when you trim the tree…
You'll look back and recall when my hand was just this small!
*Insert Child's Name Here* ~ Christmas 2006

They are *so* cute! Keep a rag nearby when doing them - you'll thank me for that tip.

[SammyOD]

Angela- Those sound adorable. Do you happen to have a picture?

[AfricanQueen99]

I don't have a picture, but I did a quick google search and these popped up:

http://www.k12.hi.us/~tmaddox/Decemb...t_Ornament.htm
http://mycraftymama.blogspot.com/200...ornaments.html
http://www.kinderteacher.com/DecemberActivities.htm

My kid had a little hand so it wasn't so defined, but you can tell with the paint pens.

I would imagine the whole thing would work really well on card stock with a lot of drying time.

[MrsAprilMay]

A couple years ago I decorated kitchen towels with DD's handprints in the shape of a Christmas tree. It was 2 prints with the palms overlapping and fingers sticking out on 2 sides. The thumbs were together to make the top of the tree. (I hope this makes sense to you, lol)

I think it would make a really cute card. You could even make it into a post card to save on postage and paper.

[wombatclay]

Those are so cute!

We often do "kiddie art" cards (handprints or finger paint on huge sheets of paper, then I cut out "good parts" to turn into cards since it's less stressful for me to have them make a big mess instead of trying to get a "good" handprint, footprint, or picture on each individual precut card). In terms of tacky vs cute... well, we only send those cards to family (who appreciate the extra love the girls are putting in) or close friends who know the girls or who would also appreciate that sort of love. Co-workers, the postal clerk, etc get home made but less "messy" cards.

One thing we have done in the past is to make paper ornament cards using the girls' hand or foot print as the mold. Basically trace their hand of foot to make a template. Then I built up a "lip" of salt dough around the tracing and let it dry (so you end up with something that looks almost like a cookie cutter in the shape of their hand or foot). DD1 enjoyed ripping up scrap paper and we mushed it all together into paper pulp, then filled the "mold" made from their handprints while dd2 added petals and other "stuff". The end result was a thick piece of paper in the shape of their hand or foot... it sounds like a lot of work but it really wasn't. The girls had fun and the ornaments weren't fragile or anything like that.

[LaughingHyena]

Last year DD and I made salt dough ornaments. They would look nice stuck on the front of a card and you could still take them off to use as ornaments the following year.

We did stars which we painted with yellow paint and then a coat of gold glitter paint. We also did snowmen which we painted white then DD added faces, buttons etc with markers.

I finished them with a coat of spray varnish to seal them.