Free Happy Hands Collage Project

Our hands have been the focus of extra washing and taking care of what we touch during lockdown. Our hands have been busy and creative, but they have not been able to reach out and touch some of the people who mean a lot to us.

Let’s put a positive focus on our hands and create happy hands to display in our windows and put a smile on the faces of neighbours and passers-by.

For this project, we will around our hand and fill the outline with images to make colourful a hand collage.

Materials:

- Plain paper - A4 or larger
- Pencil/pen
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Magazines

Instructions:

1. Lay your paper flat on the table in front of you and hold a pencil in your drawing hand.

2. Lay your non-dominant hand (the one you don’t use for drawing and writing) flat on the paper with your fingers near the top.

3. Draw around your hand and wrist, keeping them flat on your paper as you do so.

4. Flick through a colourful magazine and tear out pages that have colours or images that appeal to you. You may choose to select images based on a certain colour or theme - for example faces or flowers, but you can also choose random images that you like. You may also like to choose some uplifting words for your collage. As you tear the pages out of your magazine, make a pile on the table beside you.

5. When you have enough images to fill your hand outline, start cutting the images out to fit inside the online of your fingers, hand and wrist. You may choose to use lots of very small images or a small selection of larger ones.

6. As you cut them, lay the images onto your outline, continuing until it is full.

7. When you are happy with how your hand is looking, glue the pieces into place to fill the hand.

8. The activity can be repeated with your other hand to create a pair of Happy Hands, though you may wish to ask for help drawing round the hand you usually draw with.

9. You may wish to display your hand in your home as a reminder to keep your hands busy with other creative activities or you may wish to display it your window, waving hello to neighbours and passers-by.

Congratulations! I hope you enjoyed this creative activity.

For more information visit https://juliaelmore.com/