Giant Hand Print Art Card

I’ve seen several kinds of hand print posters lately on Pinterest, and I just knew I had to make something for my mom with our family’s hand prints on it.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to wait to the last minute to get (or make) my mom something, and sure enough, on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, I realized I had not gotten her a card yet.

My intent was to make a poster of our hand prints, using the hand prints to either make the leaves of a tree or make flowers out of them and then eventually frame the poster.

I ended up finding a HUGE card, 13” high (closed) by 18” wide at the grocery store I was shopping at that Saturday, (hey, don’t judge) and on Sunday morning, I had all my kids and my husband put hand prints on the card.

I loved the card, primarily because my mom is legally blind, and of what she can see, I knew she could see the print on this card.  It was perfect!

The photos show the major components of making the hand prints and turning them into a piece of art.

I hope you can get some inspiration from this artwork project, especially considering that it doesn’t take a whole lot of money or materials and it takes only a few hours to create. 

What we used:
Acrylic Paint: Red, orange, yellow, green and blue
1” Sponge Paintbrush – We used one and I cleaned it in between colors
Pre-made Card - (An alternative would be poster board of the color of your choice and a piece of white paper.  See the “Making your own card” section below.)
A covered workspace (newspaper or rolled out paper)
Permanent markers

Making your own card:
Although I do not have photos to show how to make your own card, I want to give a general idea.
This card’s measurements were 26” high x 18” wide.  The card was folded in half along the long side to make it 13” high.  I would use poster board in pink or red for a Mother’s Day card, and of course other colors for other Holidays and Celebrations.

The “MOM” title in the front could be easily printed off of computer with a color printer and embellished with stickers, glitter or puff paint just to name a few things.

The inside sentiment could also be printed off of a computer on a smaller white sheet of paper, and then mounted onto a larger piece of colored construction paper that would fit the inside of the card.  I would leave about a one-inch (1”) wide space around the outside of the sentiment.  Adhere any sentiment or additional layers of colored paper using a glue stick or tacky glue.

How we did it:
For all the hand prints, I squirted paint straight on the hand, and spread it around with a cleaned sponge brush.  The children’s hands were the flower “tops” and my husband’s hand print was the sun in the sky.

On the inside of the card where the ‘blank space’ is opposite of the cards wording, I started out with the baby, and he smudged his hand print, but it still showed his hand and I quite frankly didn’t have time to do it over.  I couldn’t take pictures, because it took both me and my husband to hold him, put the paint on him, and ensure that he didn’t get paint everywhere else after his hand print was done.
Lesson learned: Have help when putting the hand print down of a baby (2-years old or younger).

For all my children, I used my own palm to press down on their hand to get a good coverage of paint on the paper.

I used my hand to make the stem and the leaves, and if I do this again, I would use my children’s finger tips to make little budding flowers, rather than have the “leaves” off to the sides of the flowers the way the card came out.
Lesson learned: Plan out the card/poster before you put paint on it.  As I didn’t give myself that much time, I was still happy with the result.

One of the photos shows me covering up some (not all) of the “green-grass” area with the sponge brush under my finger prints; this was just something I chose to do.

I let the paint dry for about an hour and a half, and wrote the traditional “We love you” sentiment on the bottom of the card, purposefully in big letters for my mom, in permanent marker.

I also wrote the names of the children and their ages on the side of each of their hand prints.

As a mom myself, I know that those little hands get bigger and bigger every year, and that looking at hand prints of my children when they were younger bring back both wonderful memories and moments of joy and happiness surrounding time frames in their young lives.

My mom loved the card, of course, and knowing her, I’ll probably be framing it for her in the near future.  I will also definitely be doing this for her again, but using all the tips I gave above!