Homemade Giraffe Shirts

The last thing any mother wants to do with her toddlers is paint.  Ok, the last thing I want to do is paint. Or maybe go to the pool... 

Anyway, I've always been way to stressed out by the thought of having messes everywhere to do any art projects involving paint with my kiddos.  But that all changed on Friday when my sweet friend convinced me that we could have a fun play date involving paint.  This friend spent a few years as a preschool teacher before becoming a mommy, so I trusted that she knew what she was talking about. 

Our zoo play date was a blast.  Who knew that 6 little boys under the age of 4 could make the cutest little t-shirts? These are our hand print giraffe t-shirts:

As you can see my one of my children has ridiculously long, skinny fingers. And the other has really big thumb prints.  But they both did such a good job!  (If you can't see the hand print, look at the giraffe upside down.)  Like how I tried to write his name to cover the blob of brown paint? 

Hand print giraffes are fun and easy to make.  You will need brown and yellow fabric paint, a brown fabric marker, an eyeball, and glue. Be sure to have some baby wipes on hand to clean the paint off your little ones as soon as you're done.  Now, you'll follow a 2 step plan to create your little animals.

First, completely paint a hand in yellow paint.  Then place the hand print on your shirt (or whatever you're painting) upside down.  The thumb is the tail, and the other 4 fingers are legs.  To make the neck, paint the side of the hand yellow and create a nice long line opposite the tail (you might have to use the side of the hand twice, because the longer the neck, the better.)  Then paint the thumb yellow and create a head with the thumb print.  Now let it dry.

For step 2, paint a thumb with brown paint and use the thumb print to create feet.  Paint the index finger brown and create your tail.  Then paint any fingers and make brown spots on the giraffe.  To make your animal look real, glue the eyeball to the head.  Then take the brown fabric marker and color in hair and ears on the neck and head.  If you're detail-oriented like me, you'll even want to take a black marker to create a mouth.  Let it dry.

Hopefully at this point you'll have a cute little giraffe.  It might look like a horse or a yellow blob, but you'll have hand print art to appreciate in the future.  And you might discover that painting with toddlers isn't that bad.