Dough Handprints

NOTE: This recipe takes some experimenting. Please try the recipe BEFORE using it in a group setting. This project is rated VERY EASY to do. After the dough is mixed, I gradually add more flour until it is about as thick as play-doh. You can also use some cinnamon, it adds some color and a nice scent as well. Below is a handprint poem - if you print out the poem on nice heavy paper, you can wrap the finished handprint in some tissue paper then tie it with raffia and tuck the poem into it. This would make a great gift for Grandparents, Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc.

What You Need

2 cups of flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
Food coloring
Ribbon
Gold marker
Wax paper

How To Make It

  1. Add food coloring to the water. I use pink for girls, blue for boys.
  2. Mix all ingredients well, kneading until smooth. Dough should be pretty stiff, not soft or runny or it will fill with air bubbles when baking.
  3. Form dough into a ball, of about what you can enclose in your two hands, and form into a round smooth ball.
  4. Using a rolling pin with the dough on wax paper, roll out into as round of a circle as you can. Dough will be about 1/2 inch thick.
  5. Press your child's hand with fingers splayed into the dough. Depending on child's age, you will have to help and individually press their fingers. Make sure to press deep enough without going completely to the bottom. (When it bakes it tends to raise the handprint up.)
  6. Put on a cookie sheet.
  7. Use a chop stick or pencil, etc. to make two holes in the top about 1/2 inch apart. This will be used to string the ribbon through.
  8. Bake at 200 degrees for about 2-3 hours. Dough should be fairly hard but watch to see that it doesn't burn.
  9. When they are done and cooled, use a gold marker pen or fabric paint and write the child's name and date (year). I put the child's name on top and the year on bottom, if there is room. If not, I put name on one side and year on one side. I tie a ribbon at the top (blue or pink - or gold) to use as a loop to hang.

Handprint Poem

Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small
And always leave my fingerprints
On furniture and walls

But every day I’m growing
And I’ll be all grown-up one day
So all those tiny handprints
Will surely fade away

So here’s a little handprint
Just so you can recall
Exactly how my fingers looked
When I was very small

home |activities | calendar | community | membership | recipes | classifieds | links | contact
Copyright 2001 MOMS Club® of Tampa - Northwest, FL, All Rights Reserved