Class Art Auction Handprint Quilt

My baby is in school!  Preschool, and just two days a week, but still.  She loves it, and I’m thrilled about that!  And I get to volunteer with her class, so more fun for me too!  Our school has an auction every year to raise money, and each class makes an art project to sell there.  I spent many happy hours on google over this project! =) 

We settled on doing a handprint quilt.  Stick with what I know =)  The kids are just three so we wanted to keep it simple, bright and fun!  Here’s how we did it:

I cut out 9.5 inch squares of muslin, because after testing with Serenity it seemed like I needed squares at least 9 inches to hold her handprints if we used both hands.  I had on hand red, blue, green and yellow fabric paint, and enough bright fabrics leftover from Serenity’s birthday to make four patch squares to alternate with the handprint blocks.  So that was our color scheme.

I made a sample paper with four choices for the kids: Dinosaur, Butterfly, Heart, and Fish.  Then they had four choices of color.  Having the paper made it really easy, the kids could just point to the one they liked!  It was important that each one had the hand or hands in a slightly different position so I could tell what the kid wanted to make without having to keep track of notes.  The other mother working on the project with me fortunately has nice handwriting, so she wrote the kids names on each square.

We had everything ready to go before we arrived at the class.  We taped the squares to a piece of cardboard with wax paper on top so the fabric wouldn’t stick to the cardboard if it soaked through.  That way the square had a nice firm surface for hand stamping and drying.  It was easy!  Just be sure to paint the hand with a good layer of paint, and then press the hand down.  Kind of rub your fingers across the palm and down each finger to make sure you get a good print.  The first print was a little too light but we got the hang of it quickly. 

After it dries I added tails, antenna, eyes, and smiley faces to the appropriate shapes with a fabric pen.  Oh, and I outlined the hearts to make it more obvious.  We have a pretty even mix of shapes and colors that the kids chose!  I’m glad they liked all the options!

Then I just pieced the squares together, alternating with four patch in some bright pretty solids.  I had some great Dr. Seuss fabric that made a perfect border, and I did a quick running stitch in Perl cotton down the diagonals of the four patch blocks!  Simple, fairly quick, and super cute!