I’m super bummed that morning sickness made me miss out on prime Christmas crafting time.  I’ve been waiting all year to do Christmas crafts though, and I’m not going to let the fact that Christmas is only a week away stop me!  So stick around for some last minute Christmas inspiration, or pin the ideas for next year.  You know from my 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments series last year, that I love to make ornaments for our tree.  I made these cute clay ornaments with the kids to hang on the tree this year, and I love how they turned out!  For more fingerprint and handprint ornaments, click here. Make sure you also look at all of my other homemade Christmas ornament tutorials!

My favorite part about these is that the little hearts are made with my kids’ fingerprints.

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Supplies Needed:

• polymer clay  (see note at bottom of post)
• holiday cookie cutters
• drinking straw
• gold acrylic paint
• paint brush
• rubber letter stamps
• gold paint pen (optional)
• ribbon
• foil (to line cookie sheet)

I was hoping this would be a more “hands on” project for my kids to do, but the modeling clay ended up being pretty difficult to work with.  You might try a different kind of clay, but then again, that might not hold the fingerprint and stamp details as well.  Knead the dough in your hands to soften it.  Roll out the clay with a rolling pin (I used the one from our play-dough set).

Cut out a shape with a cookie cutter.

Use a drinking straw to poke out a hole in the top.

Help your child use their pointer finger to make a heart shape in the clay with two fingerprints.

Use some regular old rubber letter stamps to stamp the name of your child above or below the fingerprints.  If I had a number stamp set, I would have stamped the year as well, but I was trying to just use what I had.

Place the ornaments on a baking tray lined with foil.  Every clay is different, so read the instructions that come with yours or look them up online.  For this FIMO soft clay, I baked it at 230º F for about 20 minutes.  Seems to have done the job.  Keep in mind that it won’t completely harden until cooled, and you can always cook it longer if it doesn’t seem long enough.

Once your ornament is baked and cooled, you can write the date on the back with a pretty, gold Sharpie.  If you had number stamps, and stamped the front, skip this part.

Take some gold acrylic paint and paint the inside fingerprint heart.  Also push some paint into the inside of the letters.

Take a damp paper towel and wipe the outside of the letters clean before the paint dries.

Once the paint is dry, put a ribbon through the hole, and hang it on the tree.  I’m sure I’ll treasure these for years to come!  I’ve also got a little video at the top of this post to show you the process.  If you have an ad blocker, you might need to turn it off to watch it.

note:  The kind of clay I used was Fimo Soft. Even after kneading it a lot, it was still pretty hard. Fine for me to work with, but not for the kids. Looking around online a bit, it looks like Sculpy III is the softest of the polymer clays. It will just show other fingerprints and mistakes more easily. Make sure to wash little hands well after handling the polymer clay.  Also, there are other ways you can soften the clay.  Check the comments below for tips from other readers.

Take a look at these other fingerprint and handprint Christmas ornaments.

And take a look at these other Christmas ornaments that kids can make:

Pony Bead Ornaments

Lacing Ornaments

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