Painted Salt Dough Handprints

After creating five amazing activities for the book Press Here by Hervé Tullet the Preschool Book Club Team was ecstatic when we received an email saying that our activities were passed on to Tullet and he liked them! Truly honored! Adding to the excitement was the opportunity to receive the new book Mix It Up! and explore this book though play. Like Press Here, Mix It Up! invites our little readers to interact with every page of the book this time focusing on painting techniques and color exploration. The instant we flipped to the page with the handprint surrounded by a colorful array of fingerprints I knew we would make Painted Salt Dough Handprints. Check out this fun project and then make sure to enter to WIN a copy of Mix It Up! AND Hervé Tullet’s original artwork located at the bottom of this post!

Disclosure: I received a copy of the book Mix It Up! for free. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE PAINTED SALT DOUGH HANDPRINTS

makes approximately 9 child-size handprints
4 C flour
2 C salt
2 C lukewarm water
acrylic paints
paper towels
ribbon (if creating ornaments)
parchment paper
cookie sheet
Click Here to Purchase a copy of the book Mix It Up!

AREAS OF DEVELOPMENT

fine motor development
artistic expression
color exploration and mixing
creativity

HOW TO MAKE THE PAINTED SALT DOUGH HANDPRINTS

Begin by making a batch of salt dough. Mix together the flour, salt and water until combined. I used my electric mixer for this step, but you can also mix with a spoon. Next create baseball sized balls of salt dough. Place on the parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Flatten each ball with your palm until they are approximately 1/2 inch thick. Have your child place his hand on the flattened ball with fingers spread wide.

Apply gentle pressure to each of your child’s fingers and palm leaving a cute little handprint. Add a small hole to the top if you want to make these painted salt dough handprints into ornaments.

When all handprints are created bake at 325 degrees F for about 1 hour 30 minutes. After 1 hour I flipped the salt dough handprints over to ensure that they baked evenly. Take out of the oven and let cool.

While our handprints cooled we read Mix It Up! for painting inspiration. I set up painting stations for each of my children that included a painting palette with a variety of acrylic paint colors, one of the salt dough handprints and paper towel for clean up.

Inspired by Tullet’s fingerprint art I began by challenging my children to only use fingerprints. This required a lot of fine motor control.

For their next handprints I had my children look through the book and choose one of the techniques Tullet explores. My son was intrigued by the page that tilts the colors into each other.

Quinn attempted his own version by choosing two paint colors and squeezing them on to his salt dough handprint and then turning the salt dough handprint in different directions.

Quinn was disappointed that the colors didn’t combine to make purple like in the book so he mixed them up!

Each of my children created three handprints using a variety of painting techniques. The results are gorgeous!

With a simple ribbon our Painted Salt Dough Handprints are transformed into keepsake ornaments for our Christmas Tree.

Want more Mix It Up! activities? Check out the other Preschool Book Club activities!

Make Your Own Color Palette Buggy & Buddy
Color Theory Ornaments Mama Papa Bubba
Fingerprint Art Frogs Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
Fingerprint Candle Craft Sugar Aunts

Want a chance to WIN a copy of Hervé Tullet’s Mix It Up! AND Tullet’s original artwork? Each of the Preschool Book Club Team will be choosing a reader to win the book Mix It Up! A Grand Prize Winner will be chosen from those 5 readers to win an original piece of art from Hervé Tullet. Thank you so much to Hervé Tullet for the generous giveaway.

Enter via the rafflecopter below. Giveaway will run from November 18, 2014 until November 25, 2014 11:59pm EST. Only US/Canada residents are eligible to win.

This GIVEAWAY is CLOSED. 

Interested in more ways to explore books through play? Click here to check out the rest of the Preschool Book Club Series!