Yesterday I posted my first “Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day” and it was for Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies. 
I mentioned several ways your kids could help out with the cookie baking if you wanted them to. But, I figure that all that cookie rolling and thumbprinting might get kids into the mood for…..thumbprint art!
Many of you know that for eleven years, until this past August 2011 I was a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, teaching adults and kids how to work with stamps and inks for paper crafting. In fact, in 2004 and 2005 I was one o the top 100 demonstrators in the country! It was a job I loved very much and it combined a lot of the things I love, including teaching and kids. This project today reminds me of my SU days!
A fun thing for kids to do with ink is to use their fingerprints to turn them into drawings. I actually own a whole book about it: Ed Emberley’s Fingerprint Drawing Book and it’s a book I’ve had since I was little.
This is the Ed Emberley book I have at my house.
You can find Ed Emberley’s book as well as several of his others, here on Amazon.com if you’re interested in buying it for your kids.
The cool thing about it is that besides teaching the basics of thumbprint art, it also has seasonal and holiday thumbprint art pages as well! It gives kids hours of fun thumbprint art to keep them busy. I also find with my kids, once you get them going, their own innate creativity keeps them going on their own for hours (which gives you time to mix up more cookie batter!)
a Christmas page from Ed Emberley's book
If you don't want to do Christmas thumbprint art, you can do winter instead!
My personal recommendations when choosing ink pads is: be sure to use water-based ink (if you see Pigment Ink, think PERMANENT INK!!) Water-based ink washes off easily with soap and water or with baby wipes. I also always recommend using a paper tablecloth (Chinette makes them and you can reuse them as long as they’re dry and not ripped too badly.) Paper absorbs the ink that gets on the table, where plastic doesn’t and once it gets on the plastic tablecloth it stays wet and gets on arms, elbows, clothes etc.
Dress for mess when your kids work with ink, and the kids could even wear an apron if you’re nervous about clothing.
You can have your kids make scenes using their fingerprints or they can make Christmas cards, pictures for family members, teachers, friends, etc. My daughter Alex could make an entire book of her artwork. For her everything is made into a book. Your kids could do that as well, make a book, write a story to go along with their fingerprint characters.
Well there you have it, my first cookie and crafts double feature for you! What do you think??
I bet you’re wondering what I will come up with next, right?!
Just wait and see…
The Whole bag of Chips 
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