It has been a while since I have done a craft displaying Rory’s adorable hands and feet! Normally, our projects use either Rory’s hands or her feet (not both); however, I am really excited because today’s craft, Handprint and Footprint Lobsters, will use both hands and feet!
My family is fortunate enough to live by the beach and we take full advantage of it! We are at the beach almost every weekend- and Rory loves it! To avoid the scorching summer heat, we go to the beach first thing in the morning when it is cool, calm and filled with wildlife! One of Rory’s favorite things is to watch the crabs running around the sand digging holes. She loves watching them run in the sand and will tell anyone a crab says, claw, claw, claw.
We wanted to use both hands and feet for this activity, but instead of making crabs we decided to made lobsters (which Rory still thinks is a crab)!
Handprint and Footprint Lobsters
Materials needed:
- Red paint
- paper
Optional materials:
- markers (to draw legs)
- google eyes
- scrapbook paper that looks like sand
- colors to draw a beach scene
Fortunately for us, we had a nice rainy afternoon, and we were able to make these as a family!
First thing I always do before painting with Rory is put a plastic table cloth down to minimize the paint we accumulate on our floor. Before I let Rory dive into the paint, I showed her how we would put both of her hands down on the paper at the same time, making sure to leave a little bit of space between her hands.
Rory is used to our hand and foot art projects. She is quite a professional at getting a good hand and foot print down on the paper but we normally only do one hand at a time. Two hands at the same time was a new experience for her! If your child is older you may not need to do the practice, but I think it helped Rory!
I started by painting one of Rory’s hands bright red (making sure I stressed the color RED). She loved rubbing her little hands together, feeling the paint in between her tiny fingers.
She was geared up from practicing her double hand slaps, and immediately smacked both of her hands on the paper.
I set down several pieces of paper so we could make multiple hand prints, and then laid them aside to dry while we washed her hands.
The footprint creates the body of the lobster, and needs to be done upside down (or right side up if you turn the hand prints upside down). I painted Rory’s foot bright red (again stressing the color RED) and had her stomp in between the two hand prints.
Washing off the paint is half the fun, when we were done painting, we were lucky enough to wash off in the rain!*
Once the hands and footprints are dry you can decorate them any way you choose! I took a marker and added more legs and Rory glued on some goggly eyes. Just for fun we added a piece of scrap paper that looked like sand on the bottom and colored a sun and some clouds. I thought it would be fun to bring some sand home and glue it on the paper, but decided I didn’t want to clean up sand for the next 6 months!
Our vegetarian family now has a kitchen full of lobsters!
*We also made a few lobsters with eyes made out of Rory’s finger prints. Just put some paint on your little one’s fingers and press their fingers on the heel of the foot print. Just an added feature if you wanted to try it!
What cute handprint and footprint lobsters! If you’d like some more art projects with your children’s own prints, check out these from the Quirky Mommas:
- Bat Crafts – make a bat with handprint wings
- Hand and Arm Print Trees
- Thumbprint Art
