Handpainted Santa Trivets

O painted these cork trivets (from IKEA) using her handprint for her aunts, grandmamas, and me! These gifts were super easy to make and turned out better than I expected.

To make the Santas I painted her fingers white for Santa's beard, and I painted her palm pink. I painted the bottom of her palm and thumb red with a little dot of white on the tip of her thumb (we used acrylic craft paint and tempura paint). Then we mashed her hand onto the trivet. I repainted her hand for each trivet. I added the eyes with a permanent black marker. I thought about adding a few more facial features, but then decided to keep it simple. I didn't seal them with anything, so I hope they will last...

The idea for painting cork trivets from IKEA came from Let's Explore. Thanks Amy for all of your inspiring ideas!

Oh, we also put a handprint turkey on the back of my trivet, so I can use it for Christmas or Thanksgiving (although I doubt I'll actually use it for anything other than decoration). We ran out of time before we could put turkeys on the backs of the other trivets :( Next year I really will finish our handmade gifts earlier...it's so much more enjoyable to make gifts without a deadline weighing down on you.