It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  If you’re starting to think about holiday gift ideas for your students’ families, I’ve got you covered!

As a mama myself, I go weak for handmade art.  I especially love crafts that include fingerprints, handprints, or footprints.  They’re a precious keepsake!  That’s why I love to make this special gift with my students, and my own girls, too! 🙂

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Making these canvas ornaments is so fun and easy!  I bet you have some of the necessary supplies already lying around!  If you don’t, I’ve linked everything below within the directions so you can Prime them right to your house or classroom (Prime is a verb, right?!).

I like to use 3×3″ mini canvases.  You can go bigger if you want, but these are the perfect size for ornaments (or just a winter display piece for families who might not celebrate).  I have a bunch of acrylic paints in my supply closet so that’s what we use.  The paint dries quickly and washes right off of hands.

I rotate my kids in and out of this station to give each layer of paint a chance to dry.  The first thing we do is paint the background a solid color with foam brushes.  I like to offer red, green, blue and yellow.  Once the background layer has dried, I use a foam brush to paint my students’ hands– pointer, middle & ring fingers plus some of the palm under those fingers– and they stamp their prints onto the canvas.  With the brush, they can fill in the snow on the bottom.


After their prints have dried, the next step is to add details!  We use toothpicks for this part.  They’re the perfect tool for creating tiny faces, arms, and snow details!


Let your students get creative and add scarves, hats, and even bows to their snowmen!

I love how different they all turn out!!  Once your kiddos are done decorating, lay the canvases out to completely dry.  I let them sit overnight just to be sure none of the details smudge.


The following day, I use hot glue to attach ribbon to the completed canvases to turn them into ornaments!  Students can hang them on their trees at home or put them on display if they don’t have a tree.


Voila!  Aren’t they the cutest?!

Feel free to pin the image below to save this post for later or share it with your teacher friends! 🙂


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