Earth Day Handprint Art

Kids will enjoy this easy, entertaining Earth Day activity. Once completed, the artwork can decorate your home or classroom for many months, serving as a reminder of the importance of protecting our planet!

Remember to write the date on the reverse side so these handprint mementos can be saved and cherished.

Materials Required

• Earth Day Printables – have them delivered to your inbox at the end of the post.

How to Create this Earth Day Handprint Art

1. Prepare your work area.

Because handprint crafts can be untidy, it’s very useful to organize your supplies in advance! Begin by downloading and printing the Earth Day printables you plan to use (have them sent to you at the end of this post), then take them to your work area.

Collect your paints and brushes. We prefer putting a small amount of every paint color onto a palette, paper plate, or thoroughly washed yogurt lid from the recycling bin.

Since these printables include handprints only, without footprints, cleaning the paint from the sink is generally easiest. Still, placing a bowl of warm soapy water nearby may be useful, as can baby wipes, fresh cloths, or paper towels.

2. Put on the paint.

Select a non-toxic tempera paint color that matches the design you are creating. Every design shown here uses a straightforward single-color handprint except for the “Happy Earth Day” design. For that version, we decided to create a handprint inspired by Earth—we’ll explain the method below!

Begin by brushing green sections onto your child’s hand. There’s no need to make them geographically exact, and the painted areas do not need to look perfectly neat.

Next, work quickly before the paint dries and cover the remaining spaces with blue paint to represent water.

3. Stamp the handprint.

After the whole hand has been coated, assist your child in positioning it on the paper and applying pressure to create the print.

As soon as they remove their hand, a lovely Earth-inspired design will appear!

Wash the leftover paint from your child’s hand, then repeat the steps whenever necessary.

The other designs use handprints in one solid color, making them even easier to complete.

We chose standard green for the recycle page and the Earth with flowers printable. The Earth flower used lime green, the bee was made with light blue, and the Earth with words used white.