We’ve been busy celebrating the coldest season of the year…snuggling up to read some wonderful winter stories (if you caught our post on Tuesday), playing in the snow (when we are lucky enough to get it), and decorating our home with these fun Winter-Themed Arts + Crafts for Kids!
We’ve loved breaking out the glitter, exploring the wonders of homemade puffy paint, coloring with our Do-A-Dot markers, creating a fabulously fun window decoration, and more! Keep scrolling to find out how we made each of these wonderful Winter-Themed Arts + Crafts!
Paper Plate Puffy Paint Snowman
I came across the idea for a puffy paint snowman, over on The Resourceful Mama! I loved how Kim’s snowman face turned out, and I knew that the puffy paint would add a whole new sensory element. Our little nugget loved using the thicker paint, and exploring the new texture. She also enjoyed decorating her snowman…especially adding the bright blue buttons! 🙂
We chose to go big and create an entire snowman, so we started by taping three various sizes of paper plates together. Then it was time to mix up a batch of homemade puffy paint…to do this you just mix equal parts shaving cream and Elmer’s school glue. While our little nugget kept busy painting her giant snowman, I cut a simple top hat out of construction paper, a faux scarf from a piece of red felt, and gathered up a pair of googly eyes, a small orange pom, a handful of small black poms, and three larger blue poms. Once the snowman was completely covered in puffy paint, it was time to decorate! Make sure to stick on all your decorations while the paint is still wet. Since the puffy paint is made up of part glue, the decorations will automatically adhere to the snowman, saving you an additional round of gluing later on. Once the decorations are complete, set the snowman aside to dry completely.
Once the paint has dried, feel free to sing a quick round of Frosty the Snowman…or your own rendition of the song (like our little nugget chose to do). 🙂 This little girl brings a smile to my face every single day!
Sparkly & Snowy Pine Cones
Don’t you just love how the ice and snow make everything sparkle during the winter? I love taking walks outside after a new blanket of snow has fallen. The way the sun glistens off of the snow-covered trees is simply magical. We wanted to bring a little bit of that sparkle inside, and these sparkly and snowy pine cones were just the trick!
I stumbled upon the idea for this simple craft over at the Kids Craft Room! Emma’s photos of her frosty pine cones were all the inspiration I needed. I waltzed over to our nearest craft store and purchased a bag of pine cones, that just so happened to already be snow-covered (i.e. tipped with white paint). All that was left to do was to make them sparkle. We chose to utilize a can of spray adhesive. That being said, make sure to lay down some newspaper, as this crafts gets a little messy (we used a cookie sheet that was long ago designated as our crafting cookie sheet…thus it is never used for any food preparation). 🙂 Place the pine cones on the prepared surface and coat with the spray adhesive. Sprinkle on the silver glitter and let stand for several minutes, before turning the pine cones over to repeat on the alternate side.
Once the pine cones have dried completely, it’s time to put them on display. Emma chose to hang her pine cones, which looked beautiful. We chose to place our sparkly and snowy pine cones in a large glass cylinder, and utilize it as the centerpiece for our dining room table. We love how the glitter sparkles when it catches the light from our dining room fixture!
Paper & Popsicle Stick Ice Skates
It was during an outing to a local park this winter, that we happened upon an ice skating rink. Our little nugget’s eyes widened with excitement and intrigue. She immediately wanted to lace up a pair of ice skates and slide out onto the rink. As it turned out, the age limit for the rink was 4-and-up, so we promised to return next winter. And to tide us over this season…we decided to make our very own pair of colorful ice skates, utilizing some white paper, two popsicle sticks, Do-A-Dot markers, a little bit of glue, and a couple strands of yarn!
While our little nugget was busy turning the popsicle sticks blue (using her dot markers), I folded a piece of paper in two and cut out a simple boot shape, that I then replicated with another piece of white paper. I made sure to leave the two bottom components of each skate attached…this provided the resting place for our popsicle sticks when we folded the pieces of paper back together. Once the paper skates were cut out, it was time to stamp them with an array of beautiful colors. If your kiddos are anything like mine (i.e. heavy-handed on the dot marker stamping), your paper skates might start rolling up as they dry. Nothing that laying them flat underneath a couple of heavy books can’t fix! Once the paper is dry, attach the popsicle sticks with a small dab of glue, and then proceed by gluing the two interior sides of each paper skate together. Set aside for the glue to dry completely. The final step is to add the laces. We accomplished this by simply weaving yarn through a handful of holes that we created using a single-hole punch. Then we tied the pair of skates together and it was off to the ice rink…well, in our dreams at least! 🙂
Snowman Snowball Shooters
We loved constructing toilet paper tube confetti poppers this past Fourth of July, so when I came across the idea for these adorable Snowman Snowball Shooters on Playdough to Plato‘s Instagram feed (@playdough2plato) a few weeks ago, I knew a snowman snowball fight was in our future!
To create your own snowman snowball shooter you will need an empty toilet paper tube, and a regular latex balloon. Tie the deflated balloon as you normally would (if it were actually inflated) and then cut the balloon in half, using a pair of scissors. Keep the piece of balloon that holds the tied end, and discard the other half. Stretch the balloon over one end of the empty toilet paper tube, without causing the end of the tube to cave in on itself. Once the balloon is taut, secure it to the tube with some tape (I used clear packing tape). Next you will want to cover your tube with a piece of white paper. You can attach the paper using a few small pieces of tape. And then it’s time to bring your snowman to life…grab some markers and give your snowman some eyes, a carrot nose, a mouth, and some buttons. We like our snowmen to wear scarves, and while I was initially intending to use yarn to achieve this goal, I found that Washi Tape was much more useful! I figured if I glued a yarn scarf onto the tube, that it would just break off the moment the snowball fight commenced.
When our snowmen were complete, we gathered up a variety of white poms (you could also use some cotton balls) and set off for an epic snowball battle. I mean…the faces that our daughter was making each time she pulled back on the balloon (as she prepared to unleash a firestorm of snowballs in my direction) were absolutely legendary. I could not stop laughing. We have a fierce little fighter on our hands. 🙂
Popsicle Stick Snowflakes
We returned from our daughter’s Halloween party at school this past year, with a couple of popsicle stick spider webs. Once Halloween had passed, I removed the yarn webbing and realized that the popsicle sticks would also make wonderful snowflakes! I love being able to reuse things!
For our purple snowflake, we coated the popsicle sticks with white Elmer’s glue and then topped them with two different types of purple glitter. Once one side of the snowflake had been glued and glittered, we set it aside to dry completely, before flipping it over to repeat the process on the opposite side.
For our blue snowflake, we actually utilized some leftover blue glitter glue, blue sequins, and small clear beads that we had purchased for our Blue Glitter Glue Sensory Bottle. We coated the popsicle sticks with the glitter glue and then carefully placed the sequins and clear beads on top. We set our snowflake aside to dry, before flipping it over to repeat the process on the opposite side.
Once our snowflakes were completely dry, we wrapped some fishing line around them and hung them up for all to see!
Clothespin Snowmen
I fell in love with this adorable Clothespin Snowman Craft for Kids to Make, when I came across it over on Easy Peasy and Fun! And I figured that these snowmen would make the perfect addition to our winter-themed arts + crafts!
We started this fun craft by painting some clothespins white. Once all of the paint had dried, we grabbed some mini orange poms, some yarn, our colorful Sharpie markers, and some Elmer’s glue. We drew two eyes on each snowman (using a black Sharpie), and then with a small dab of glue, we attached each mini orange pom. Below the orange noses, we used our black marker to add a dotted smile. Then it was time to tie on the scarves (yarn). And lastly, we chose three different colored markers for their buttons. The best part about these cute little snowmen is that you can hang them up from just about anywhere. You could even glue a small magnet to the back of them, and utilize them to hang artwork on the refrigerator!
Wintry Faux Stained Glass Craft
This beautiful, wintry faux stained-glass craft might just top my list of favorites for our winter crafts this year (though the ice skates come in a close second)! I absolutely love how it turned out…the way the colors light up when the sun shines down on our living room window. I find myself staring at it absentmindedly, several times a day. 🙂 And our little nugget loves creating tissue paper sun-catchers…so it was a win-win!
I found the idea for these “Stained Glass” Tissue Paper Winter Window Decorations over on Kinder Craze! I loved Maria’s idea, so I quickly gathered up some blue, purple, and white tissue paper, and cut them into small squares. Then I cut a border out of a piece of black construction paper. I cut two snowflakes from the remainder of the black paper. Once everything was prepped, I taped a piece of contact paper to our sliding glass door, stuck the black border and snowflakes to the contact paper, and let my little nugget go to town applying all of the tissue paper! When she was satisfied with her work, I stuck another piece of contact paper over the initial piece, pressing firmly to remove any air bubbles. I pulled the contact paper off of our sliding glass door, and cut out our faux stained glass with a pair of scissors. Finally, I taped it up in our living room window, where it adds the perfect wintry touch to the room!
And there you have it…the wonderful winter-themed arts + crafts that we’ve loved making this year! If you’re looking for more fun ideas, check out our Winter Wonderland Arts + Crafts that we created last year!
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