Make Mother’s Day handprint art with the kids this spring. The results of these fun art projects for kids are sure to be a hit with whoever receives them!
Below, I share one of my favorite Mother’s Day art projects to do with preschoolers. It’s a mixed-media canvas piece, and I think the end result is gorgeous! Of course, I’m biased, and I always think the kids’ art is beautiful! Seriously, though, it is truly and easy art project that the kids love making. I’m sure your students will have a blast with it, too.
Underneath our art idea are even more Mother’s Day art that incorporates children’s hand prints. And the best thing is all of these ideas can be used to make gifts for any special person in the kids’ lives.
Related: Nuts and Bolts Father’s Day Craft
This Mother’s Day project takes our coffee filter flowers and incorporates them into an adorable bouquet held by the kids’ hand prints. I love that it’s a multi-step project that uses multiple art techniques.
This shows the children that art can be done in a variety of ways, and within varying timelines.
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Mother’s Day Handprint Art
Choose a day you are prepared for a little bit of mess with your preschoolers. If your students are anything like mine, though, they won’t mind a little messy art.
Related: Fingerprint Heart Magnets
The first part of the project consists of making coffee filter flowers – a project the kids LOVE! And then giving them a hand in the form of a painted hand print. Each creation will look a little different depending on which flowers the kids choose to use, and the colors they decide to paint their hands.
While I love process art, and we do a TON in preschool, I also love creating keepsake art with kids’ hand prints. The kiddos make the decisions for what their art would look like, and they do most of the “work”, but they might need extra adult assistance.
I touch on this a little bit more towards the end of the post, but this doesn’t have to be labeled a “Mother’s Day” handprint art project.
Depending on your students’ lives, it might just be a special art project for their loved ones! Use the idea as you see fit. Children can also just make this as one of their seasonal spring crafts and keep it for themselves!
Materials You’ll Need
Once you have a few coffee filter flowers chosen, you don’t need a whole lot more for this handprint art project. Here are a few items you can gather before getting started. I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
- White canvas
- 3 coffee filter flowers
- Tempera paint
- White glue
- Paint brushes
- Baby wipes
Making this Mother’s Day handprint art piece on canvas makes it so much easier to hang on the wall once it is gifted. It’s ready to go without any extra frames! Of course, you can always swap the canvas out for cardstock if you prefer.
Prepping for the Mixed-Media Handprint Bouquet
Make sure the kiddos have made their coffee filter flowers. In most cases, my students had more than enough to choose from. However, there were a few who didn’t make any the first time around. If that was the case, I asked them to make some. It wasn’t a hardship on anyone, let me tell you!
Whip up some homemade Mod Podge. There are a lot of ways to do that, but I simply add water to plain old white school glue. I add enough water to make it easy to paint with.
Then it’s on to making the Mother’s Day bouquet with the kids!
How to Make Your Mother’s Day Handprint Art
Here’s what to do first:
- Have each child choose three coffee filter flowers.
- Then let the children paint the top half of the canvas with the watery glue mixture.
- Next, have the kids carefully place the coffee filter flowers one at a time. Encourage them to gently press down so that the flowers adhere to the glue on the canvas.
- Once all of the flowers are in place, they can gently paint on more watered-down glue if needed.
The next steps for your Mother’s Day handprint art are:
- Have the kids choose a paint color for the hand prints. At this point, I grabbed a baby wipe and a paper towel.
- Blot off any extra glue mixture with the paper towel (to prevent the colors from running). Use a baby wipe to remove any bits of color that may have come off the flower.
- Have the children paint their hands. Some may request help with this, and that’s okay!
- Then help the children situate their hands towards the bottom-middle of the canvas. Work with the child to make a hand print there!
After the hand print is on the canvas, it’s time for the finishing touches:
- Using a fine paintbrush, add stems from the flowers to the hand print. This way, it looks like the child is holding a bouquet of flowers for his mom. (You can do this or have the kids help, depending on their preferences and abilities.)
- Finally, be sure to add the name and date at the bottom of the canvas!
Once all the steps are done, place the canvases to dry. We left ours out overnight and everything was done the next morning.
More Mother’s Day Handprint Art Ideas
As promised, I have even more gift ideas than incorporate those sweet little hand prints!
Make handprint mason jars for loved ones to store their pens or other important knick-knacks.
Add a tear-inducing poem to these sweet handprint and fingerprint flower pots!
Turn handprints into sweet treats with a handprint cupcake card.
Pop little seed bombs into these fun fingerprint flower pots for an ongoing Mother’s Day gift.
Use lots of colors to create footprint and handprint bouquets (and it comes with a free printable).
Go 3 dimensional with your Mother’s Day handprint art and make these awesome handprint ring dishes.
Use both hand and fingerprints for a handprint heart tree.
Make a super useful gift with these adorable handprint tulip towels.
Get the whole family involved to make wood slice handprints, or you could make one with just the kiddo’s handprint.
Turn handprints into cute self portraits using googly eyes in a handprint card for mom, with a twist.
Be sure to pin this post for future reference!
Not Just for Moms
While we made this art project for the preschoolers’ mamas, it definitely isn’t only meant for moms. Dads, grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, foster parents, and more will love it, I am sure!
I do want to take a moment to encourage you to make gifts for the special people in your students’ lives. And of course you already know that some children have both parents in their lives, some have only one, and others have foster parents or grandparents taking care of them.
If you have kids in your class that don’t have their mothers in their lives, I see nothing wrong with changing the name of this art project! It doesn’t need to be Mother’s Day art.
Just tell the children that they’ll get to make a special art project for the special people in their lives. It’s all about being aware of the kids’ home lives and being supportive of the people they consider special to them.
Spring Resources for Preschool Teachers
If you’re looking to save some time planning for preschool, be sure to pop over to Preschool Teacher 101. You’ll find a bevy of done-for-you resources like preschool lesson plans, math and STEM activities, and literacy packs.
Check out our membership options for even more ways to save your time. Click on the photos below for more information about each specific resource:
Originally published May 3, 2015
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