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.
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