Thanksgiving Craft for Children

My heart was heavy tonight, so I got my hands busy to keep from dwelling upon negative emotions and thoughts.  I wish the project had been a little more tedious and had taken a little longer!  :)  Since it didn't, I decided to do a blog post about the project.

This is a project I started last November when I was teaching my Thanksgiving lessons with my daughter.  We try to include my three-year-old son as much as we can, so this was one fun, easy project in which he could participate.

In November, we used handprints to make a Pilgrim and an Indian/Native American. 

To make the Pilgrim, I painted each child's four fingers black and the palm a light tan.  As the child held his/her fingers close together, he/she pressed the painted hand to the center of the paper.  After the paint dried, I painted a black band and a gold square for a buckle on the Pilgrim's hat.  Then I painted on hair and a simple face.

To make the Indian, each child picked out a color to paint each finger.  The fingers have to be painted quickly to keep them from drying too much to make a good print.  The palm was painted a light brown or darker tan than the Pilgrim.  After the print was made and dry, I painted on the headband with the design, the hair, and the simple face.

While shopping for groceries and birthday party supplies today, I finally found some frames on clearance that I could use.  How lucky was I that there were only two frames- or maybe I'm lucky that they had at least two...???  :)  Um, anyway, once the children were in bed and my mind was racing I decided to get busy and finish the project.  I tend to be a perfectionist, and when I am afraid a project is going to give me a hard time, I procastinate.  Thankfully, tonight, I was able to channel that negative energy and the project was quite easy.  I thought I might share a little trick I used to make the project easier.

When I do a framed project, I am a little nutty about the picture or other subject being centered.  ( I am seriously trying to get over this, lol!  I have started leaving things a little imperfect on purpose to remind me nothing in life is perfect, and it's okay! This method works well until it is the house I try to leave imperfect; then my husband goes nutty.  Heeheehee!  I just couldn't help myself. ;) )  Okay, enough silliness.  When I took my frame apart, I noticed the paper had rectangles printed on the paper I figured I could use them as a guide.  This picture is just so that you can see how the rectangle could be seen through the paper. 

I flipped the frame paper over. (I had to flip it over because the green rectangle was too dark and could be seen through the artwork paper.)  I held the frame paper and the art paper up to a light to line the print up in the middle of the frame.  I hope that makes sense.  When I had the print centered, I carefully put it down and taped the artwork in place. 

I repeated the process with the other print, and then I repeated the whole process with the other frame.  I think they turned out really cute.  The paper is acid-free, so I hope this will be a project we can use to decorate with for many years to come.