tuTORIal: Easy & Fun Winter Crafts
During the kids’ winter break from school we had a lot of time at home together which meant one thing – lots and lots of crafting! Luckily, DIY’ing is in my DNA because Liam and Stella (and sometimes even Hattie) love nothing more than to spend an afternoon crafting. Whether they’re making Christmas ornaments, shrinky dinks, décor for Finn’s nursery or tie-dye tanks, my babes craft their little hearts out every chance they get.
So when they were home from school and had tons of time on their hands, the first thing we did (after recovering from the flu/food coma) was break out the crafting supplies. We thought long and hard about what to make, and came up with 2 ideas that would be perfect for the holidays, but ones that we could also display around the house throughout winter. Here’s what we made:
Personalized Picture Snow Globes
Ingredients:
• Mason Jar (or any clear jar with a tight lid, large enough to fit your picture once cut out)
• Glue Gun & Hot Glue Sticks
• Scissors
• Picture
• Laminate paper (can purchase at any craft or office supply store)
• Mini Styrofoam balls
• Embellishment pieces (Suggested Embellishments: Mini Christmas Trees, Fake Berries, Mini Pine Cones, mini bells)
• Glycerin
• Glitter
• Water
Here are the steps:
Take your pictures and cut out each person. It’s nice to use a full body rather than just 1/2 or a face.
Cut outs of my babes!
Use your laminate paper pouch and laminate your cut out picture.
Once you laminate, cut out your person again, but make sure to leave an edge around the picture so it stays sealed.
Laminated Liam
Then you want to unscrew the lid to your jar. I like to re-screw the lid back on to find out which direction will face a smooth surface on the jar before I start gluing. With the mini styrofoam balls (they can be painted and then glittered first or left white) slide the picture into the ball so they can be glued and stand straight. Once you do this, seal the picture into the slit of the ball with some hot glue.
Next, glue the ball onto the lid of the jar, making sure the front of the picture will face the smooth part of the jar.
Take your embellishments (mine are pictured above) and glue them around your picture to make a nice background scene. During this step, make sure to leave enough room around the edge of the lid so you can screw it back onto the jar.
Now you can fill your jar up, almost to the top with water. Then add your glitter (I found larger flecks of glitter worked better than fine glitter) Then add glycerin to the water, which will help the glitter float a little bit slower (Usually about 2-3 teaspoons per cup of water)
Now your design attached to the lid can be screwed into jar.
If you want you can put some hot glue on the lid to seal it closed, but it's best to wait to seal it just in case you need to make any adjustments after you place it in the water.
Paper Snowflake Window Coverings
Ingredients:
• Regular white paper (You can use decorative paper if you prefer)
• Scissors
• Clear fishing wire
• Clear tape
How To:
Fold your sheet of paper from the top left corner down to make a folded square. Once you have the first fold, cut the extra paper off of the bottom to make a complete folded triangle.
Take your triangle and fold a second time to make a smaller triangle.
Fold the triangle a third time
Next, take the right side of the triangle and fold. Make sure the sides line up.
Cut the bottom off to make a complete triangle.
Cut the folded triangle with various cuts. It takes some experimenting to see which you like best.
Carefully open the folded paper to see your snowflake!
TIP: I like to put my completed snowflakes in a heavy book for a few hours to help flatten them out before I hang them.
Hanging the Snowflakes
1. Using the clear fishing line, tape the line to the top of the window and the bottom to make a vertical line in front of the window.
2. Use the tape to tape the fishing line to the back of each snowflake.
3. Put the snowflakes spaced as you like on the line.
4. Repeat these steps for the additional lines to cover your windows spaced as little or far apart as you want.
Both of these crafts are proudly displayed in our kitchen and living room. The snowflakes look super pretty and are the perfect winter décor, and the snow globes give the space a personal touch that I love.
What have you and your kiddos crafted lately?
Love,
T
18 comments
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You are seriously one crafty mama!! I don't think my markers and coloring books are cutting it with my kids! You make me want to step up my creative craft game! Such cute ideas...Jennifer
I'm a mommy with a makeup problem...http://www.jennysuemakeup.com -
How cute! Thanks for sharing! In Budapest, where we live, we are snowed in right now, so I really need all the inspiration on indoor activities I can get!
xo, Emma
http://thehulahoophoney.blogspot.hu -
Really neat idea! Will def try this next year. Hope they look as good yours! Thanks for sharing this. -
tory,
thankyou soo much for showing me how to do the snowflakes i have been wanting to know how to do that for ever!now i have a fun craft to do with my nephews and niece, thankyou -
Torri
You are so creative! I made a form of the snow globe years ago when we were broke. Yours are much better! The only suggestion I have is to put ribbon around the lid with hot glue.
Thanks for bringing back a sweet memory. -
Love your neat winter ideas! The water globes are just precious and would go great with the little animals pictures too. I have goats like you and they would look cute in the little globe.
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Love the water globes! So cute and unique. I am going to make one of my adorable great niece.as a surprise. Keep the great diart projects coming and thanks! -
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I love, love, love the snow globe jars. I want to do that for all my 8 grandchildren!!! Thank you Tori!!!
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Thank you so much for sharing Tori. I especially loved the snowglobes, my son loves and collects them, I'm sure we will have so much fun making those and I'm not going to wait until Christmas, those can be made for any occasion. Thanks again, I would have never though of that my self.
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I discovered your blog last summer... You always have very cute ideas. I never thought to have winter decorations, my place goes bare for a few weeks between jan 1st until valentines. This year my son and I did a snowflake craft I found on east coast mommy blog...check her out. She had 3 kids in 3 1/2 years so you may relate lol
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omg what a great way to have the memories too later on! love those jars!
Anyone wanting to do the snowflakes, they are still taking them in Newtown, CT to put all over the school they relocated to. They have them all over windows, walls, and hanging from all over the world! -
We already had the papersnowflakes in mind as a craftproject for the coming weekend. I love to have something wintery as decoration in the house, it seems so empty without the tree and Christmastrimmings. And they predicting snow as well over here, so perfect crafting circumstances! Thanks T for the inspiration from this tuTORIal. -
Awesome pics Tori!
Another fun indoor activity you would love is growing a TickleMe Plant from seeds. We make it a tradition to plant a TickleMe Plant on Valentine's Day as the TickleMe Plant is the only plant that reacts to affection by closing its leaves and lowering its branches when you Tickle it or Blow it a KISS!
Have you grown a TickleMe Plant yet? If not..what are you waiting for?
http://www.ticklemeplant.com -
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Love the snowglobes! My son loves snow globes (he collects them) and he loves photos so pinning this for next year. Would make a cute Grandpdarent gift too!
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