Rainbow Roses

This simple handprint craft is a great DIY Valentine's gift for friends or teachers.

Handprint rainbow roses.

What you need:
- white card

- paint (we used the Crayola neon colours)
- paint palette
- medium size paint brush
- water
- tea towel
- scissors
- green straws
- tape (we used washi tape)
- red and pink tissue paper
- Valentine's patterned scrapbook paper

Some of the materials needed.

How it works:

My little man hasn't always been keen on messy crafts so any chance I get I like to explore a handprint activity with him. We started off by painting his hand in an approximate rainbow of colours. We were using the Crayola neon colours so it wasn't an exact rainbow match but that's ok. Make sure you use a good covering of paint, including going slighty round the edges of the hand.

Rainbow painted hand.

Print the hand onto the white card, with fingers spread. We managed to get two prints out of each painting session. As your child places their hand on the card apply a little pressure all over their hand to make sure the paint contacts the card. Once the two prints were done, we had to apply another layer of fresh paint on the hand.

Rainbow handprints.

We let the hand prints dry before cutting them out. We then used washi tape to attach a green flexi straw to the back of the handprint. This represented the stem of the rose.

Taping down the straw stem.

Next it was time to wrap the rose to make it look extra pretty. This was fiddly but my son was a good helper at twisting the tissue paper and getting the tape ready.

First of all we pinched the piece of tissue paper in the centre and twisted it. Then we put the straw in the centre of the twisted tissue paper and put a layer of tape around it.

Tissue paper twisted and taped around the straw stem.

Next up I cut a square piece of Valentine's themed scrapbook paper in half to make a triangle. I then curled one corner round to make a cone shape with a hollow bottom for the stem to slot in. My son added some tape to hold the cone shape. 

We repeated this process for all of the handprints so that we ended up with half a dozen rainbow roses. My son will give these to his teachers at school for Valentine's Day.

Rainbow roses nicely wrapped.

Proud little man ready with his Valentine's gifts!

A really nice and simple handprint craft that serves as a great handmade Valentine's gift for loved ones.