thanksgiving handprint art

I'm lucky enough to have my in-laws {who live up the driveway from us} and my Mom and brother {who live 20 minutes away} close by. It's not always been this way, so we often mailed art projects and notes and letters to our friends and family far away.

That's my little Spunky. She's our hand model today as we show you how to make your own handprint turkey, just in time to send out to Family and Friends who might not be able to make it to the get-together this year. You might even want to share this idea with your child's teacher for a fun art project.

Today, I'm also sharing this project with my write.click.scrapbook. buddies on their blog where you'll find  other free downloads and craft ideas to do with your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins.

First, you'll want to print off this free download. I recommend using a smooth cardstock weight paper for this, since paint is involved. You can also right click on the image below. For this and other printables, visit the downloads section in my sidebar.

Next, we'll pull out one of Mommy's old t-shirts {aka our painting shirt} because this might get a little messy. I opted to make this a two-step process with Victoria, but with an older child it could easily be accomplished in one step.

We're going to make a handprint turkey. To make the turkey, paint the bottom half of the hand and thumb with brown paint {this will be the body and neck of the turkey}. Then paint the fingers with red, yellow or orange paint. Make them different colors or alternate two colors as we did. Using markers, draw the legs {brown}, beak {orange}, waddle {red} and eyes and eyelashes {black}. 

To get Victoria to cooperate and do things my way, I promised her that she could have her photos and project on Mommy's blog. And after I took these photos she said, "Mommy, I gave you my best smiles!"  Gosh, I love this girl. I could just gobble her up!


If painting is really not an option in your house, but you still want to send best wishes, then why not print this download on an 8.5x11 piece of cardstock or matte photo paper {which is what I used}. After trimming, you will have a card that can be folded and mailed. You can close the notecard by cutting out one of the labels provided and attach with your favorite adhesive.

The digital papers and die cut elements are from a variety of kits by Crystal Wilkerson. I used this font from Kevin and Amanda inside the die cut shapes. There are faint lines just above the return address label and just below the round label to use as score lines for folding. 

Here's what I came up with:

I chose to add a photo {just had to trim 1" from the side of a standard 4x6 photo} and also added yet another die cut shape to the bottom portion inside the mailer to send to my dear friend. You know, the one who got me started on the scrapbooking bug in the first place! One could also have the kidlets draw a picture or even have them write a short note themselves. 

You can see that I fussy cut around the 'thinking of you' die cut shape and used it as a closure for my mailer. Oh, and I rounded all the corners.