Winter Crafts

Recently, because Cody and Jaden haven't been very into outdoor snow play, we've decided to bring some snow fun indoors... in the form of craft projects. I found all these cute ideas on one of my favorite blogs: handsonaswegrow.com. The girl who writes this blog has 3 boys, so her projects are usually right up our alley.

First, we made a snow collage. I taped some contact paper to our glass door and gave the boys various decorating items (paper, Q-tips, and cotton balls).

We found out that if we dabbed the cotton balls on the contact paper, it left a fun wispy, cloud-like remnant.

That was definitely the boys' favorite part!

Here is their final abstract product. The only help Mommy gave was with the snowflake in the bottom corner. I was trying to convince them to make snowmen with the circles and hat shapes, but as you can tell, that didn't happen. :)

Another day, we made no-mess painted snowflakes. Mommy loved this one! I started by cutting snowflake designs into small paper plates. Cody and Jaden loved opening up the snowflakes to see the patterns. Then, we stuck the snowflakes into plastic bags.

The boys each picked out a color of paint and helped me dump it into the bag. Then, they got to use their hands (and later even their feet!) to smear around the paint. Good thing we made the snowflakes with a durable paper plate!

Even though we dumped glitter into the bag along with our paint, it didn't show up very well. So, after taking the snowflakes out of the bag (it worked best to turn the bag completely inside-out), Jaden and Cody got to sprinkle on a bit more glitter.

Once the snowflakes were dry, we hung them on our mantel. Also on our mantel are paper plate/snowglobe snowmen that the boys made at library story time. Each week, a mom volunteers to lead toddler-friendly crafts that fit with the theme of the library stories. Her ideas are always so cute. We love our weekly library time!

This next craft was from our first January playgroup. Unfortunately, the boys and I had to miss our gathering, due to sickness. But, since I was the one to plan the snowman craft, I had all the supplies ready to go. The boys enjoyed assembling their snowman here at home once they were feeling better. The lighting of the photo isn't great to tell this, but their favorite part was adding decorations and features to the snowman's hat and face. And of course, ANY craft that involves glue stick is always a winner!

Most recently, we made marshmallow snowman. I wasn't sure how the boys would handle this project, since they LOVE eating marshmallows, but we gave it a try. First, Jaden and Cody colored their paper blue.

Then, Mommy drew on the snowman's body. The boys helped me squirt glue along the black lines. After sampling a small handful of marshmallows, they were ready to stick the marshmallows on the glue.

Not that this was my intent, but this was a great project to practice the boys' fine motor skills. Not surprisingly, Jaden was very careful about placing his marshmallows on the black line. He hardly needed my help at all!

Cody need a bit more guidance (he liked to just drop his marshmallows on the paper), but he eventually got the hang of it. Mommy was just thankful that we made it through the project without anyone eating a glue-covered marshmallow! :)

Now, our house is full of snowy decorations! We enjoy having something festive hanging up, especially right after the Christmas decorations go away. I'll have to remember this again next year!