Autumn Fingerprint Tree

I have been noticing all kinds of fun Autumn crafts online (mostly in blogs I read) this season, but there are few of them that I have felt Brianna is old enough to enjoy or "get". However, when I found this craft here, I knew Brianna would love it (plus, it's SO cute!)

The first thing I did to prepare for this activity was to download an image of a leafless tree from Google Images. I pasted the image into a word document, sized it how I wanted it, then typed Brianna's name and the year in the document in my favorite font. I then printed two copies on cardstock (in case one somehow got ruined). I also pulled several different colors of ink from my scrapbooking stash, and we were ready to go. It maybe took 15 minutes to prepare . . . my kind of craft!

 Brianna didn't know what we were doing, but she was sure excited!

She couldn't wait to get her hands on the ink! She is always trying to get at it when I have my supplies out for a project, so when I actually let her touch it, she was thrilled.

I let Brianna choose which color she wanted to start with, and she chose the red. Then, I helped her put her finger on the ink and "stamp" onto the paper. She thought this was great!

With an older child, I would have just let them do the finger stamping on their own, but since Brianna is only 20 months old, I had to help her pretty much the whole time. Otherwise, she was finger stamping on the table, her booster seat, her pants, etc :-). I did give her some freedom, but for the most part I guided where she was putting the fingerprints.

Also, I kept a few baby wipes handy to wipe off her fingers when we changed colors. The ink did leave her fingers a bit stained, but it did not come off on anything else (like clothing, upholstery, etc).

After stamping with all of the colors I had chosen, Brianna was very proud of the finished product! It only took about 15 minutes to do the stamping which is the perfect length for Brianna right now.

And I L.O.V.E. the way it turned out! It's hanging on the refrigerator now, but I plan to frame it and use it as decor next year. I think a whole collage of these from different children/ages would be so adorable!