Make adorable fingerprint Christmas light wrapping paper for your gifts this year – a perfect easy craft idea to enjoy with all the family!
- Family Friendly
- Time & Effort
- Supplies Needed
We love a fingerprint Christmas craft! They are so easy and great for getting the kids involved. Whether it’s handmade Christmas cards, gift tags, Christmas ornaments, keepsake gifts or this super cute wrapping paper, there’s no end of fingerprint crafting inspiration for the festive season!
And these Christmas light strings created from fingerprints are so eye-catching and oh so simple to create. A perfect way to brighten up kraft paper and make a unique and personal design.
Looking for more gift inspiration? Click here for ideas galore of what to put under the tree this year.
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They’re also a wonderful art project to enjoy together with your little one – great for secretly working on those fine motor skills and a fabulous sensory activity dipping fingers straight into paint.
And it’s not just the younger kids that will have fun – this is one of those Christmas activities perfect for the whole family including older children and grandparents! Let each person choose a paint colour and enjoy working your way around the table adding your bulbs throughout – you’ll have enough paper ready for all the gifts in no time!
It could even become a new family tradition and your friends will be wowed by the beautiful paper you’ve thoughtfully created for them.
Creating Fingerprint Christmas Lights craft paper
Fingerprint Christmas Lights Colour Combinations
The wonderful thing about Christmas lights is you can use whatever colour combination you want.
We loved the idea of showcasing bright festival colours on a black kraft paper background. The colour combination is so on trend right now and it really pops as a design to look striking under the tree.
Here’s some other ideas we think would look stunning:
- Red and green lights on brown kraft paper
- Silver and gold lights on a peach or dark green background
- Pastel tones on white paper
There’s so many different ways you could put this fingerprint light design to use!
What You’ll Need
Very little is the answer! It’s really only the paper and paint, making this a super cheap activity too. Hurrah!
Paper
We love this black kraft paper from Clairefontaine. It’s good quality for painting and then wrapping, and you get a great sized roll.
Paint
Acrylic paints offer the most vibrant colours on the paper and a good thickness of paint. However, particularly if working with children, do be sure to use non-toxic paints and preferably washable ones in case they get elsewhere other than just on the paper!
We absolutely love this non-toxic paint set from IKEA. It’s great value and the paints are so vibrant. Plus as they come in bottles with thin nibs you can draw the Christmas light string with the silver paint as well as squeezing the colours out onto a board to use for fingerprints. The paints last really well too so you can keep it for other craft projects.
Marker
If you would prefer to draw your line in pen then a black marker (or equivalent) will work best.
Add pencil marks to paper to ensure good spread of fingerprints
Finishing Touches
There’s really no need to add any extra touches to the design – we think it looks great as it is! But just in case, here are a couple of ideas you might like to try:
- Once the paint has dried, use a silver or black sharpie to add little squares to the top of each “bulb” as a light fixing on the string. Alternatively you could mark these squares along the string before painting to show where each bulb is going to be positioned.
- If you want to get really sophisticated and give your lights a 3D effect, add a tiny white bean shape on one side of each light bulb (once the colour paint has dried).
Why not make some matching gift tags or homemade Christmas cards to go with your creation?!
Christmas Lights fingerprints
How To Make Fingerprint Christmas Lights Wrapping Paper
Fingerprint Christmas Lights Wrapping Paper
Equipment
- Plate or equivalent board for paints
- Weights for Corners of Paper
- Pencil
- Marker pen
Materials
- Paint
- Kraft paper
Instructions
- Stretch a piece of kraft paper across your table or floor and secure in place with weights at each end.
- Use either a marker pen or paint in a thin nibbed bottle to create a Christmas light string. Try to use a continuous line and add lots of swirls for pretty patterns and lots of space to add fingerprints.
- Using a pencil, make small marks at regular intervals along the line on the paper to use a guide when adding the fingerprint lights. Place marks on alternate sides of the line for a proper Christmas light effect. We would suggest around 2-3cm apart, but it’ll depend on your desired effect.
- Squeeze some of each of your chosen paint colour selection out onto a plate or equivalent board (we used a paper plate).
- Dip your finger into one of the paints, chose a pencil mark on the paper and press down firmly. Lift your finger carefully to leave a fingerprint mark. It’ll probably be most comfortable to use your index / pointer finger. But younger children may prefer to use their thumb for a bigger bulb shape.
- Repeat across the paper, spreading the colours out until all the pencil marks have been covered.
- Leave to dry.
Notes
- When creating the Christmas light string, try to think of the size gifts being wrapped. If being used for smaller gifts, you’ll want to ensure the string twirls are tighter and more frequent to create pretty patterns to show on the sides of wrapped gifts.
- Add each colour in turn across the whole sheet to minimise finger cleaning, and to ensure that your colours are well spread out.
- If the kraft paper is quite thin, consider putting a layer of newspaper down first to avoid seepage through the paper onto the surface below.
DIY Christmas Lights Fingerprint Wrapping Paper
We are so pleased with this wrapping paper and can’t wait to show it off under the tree this holiday season. What fingerprint Christmas lights creations will you be trying?
