Winter Theme: Arts & Crafts

There are so many cute seasonal arts and crafts projects this time of year. You can certainly purchase winter-themed craft kits on the cheap at local craft supply stores, Dollar Tree and even big box stores. There's a lot you can do, however, without any kits at all right from the warmth and comfort of your own home. Here's a peek at some of our favorites from Winters past:

We especially loved this Invitation to Create a Snowman last year. Using white paint and a plastic cup for stamping as well as some construction paper accessories, google eyes and buttons to glue on, my son and I each built our very own snowman indoors. His was melting I think!

As much as I love an uncluttered house and am careful about selecting what I save, what I donate and what I toss throughout the year to keep it that way, I have a hard time parting with artwork my students and son have created. I may or may not need a little more time to part with the 5,624 paper plate turkeys I have from the last few years and I may or may not just serve Thanksgiving dinner on them next year and avoid the whole mess of dishes afterword. That said, selecting a few projects throughout the year to do on canvas creates a beautiful and finished look that children and parents alike can feel proud of for years to come. They make wonderful gifts and keepsakes. Last winter we did this masking tape resist snowflake painting on canvas, adding coarse kosher salt at the end for a gorgeous and realistic icy texture. We don't have enough wall space to accommodate endless amounts of artwork and we also don't necessarily want to look at snowflakes in July. Rather, we have some set areas where we hang artwork that gets rotated throughout the year. This is a fun way to reminisce as well as to welcome a new season or theme. I'm looking forward to swapping this one in again soon!

 And here are a couple less traditional "canvases" your artist can work from! Using pipettes, squeeze bottles or recycled condiment bottles full of colored water, you can create beautiful snow paintings outdoors in indoors. It's also a fabulous hands-on way to explore color mixing and snow melting!

Another version of coarse kosher salt on paint--my little guy painted this polar bear "ziplock bag style" when he was still a baby. Sprinkling kosher salt on top gives it the "frosty" look!

Ice prepared by freezing water in plastic containers overnight made the "canvas" on this watercolor painting. I did this last year both with my son and with my pre-k students. It provided a lengthy amount of fun and exploration as the colors mixed and settled into the ice. It's surely an activity we will pull out again here this year and it doesn't even need to be wintertime at all!

Lastly, fear not the mess of arts and crafts in the home! Never underestimate the power of a ziplock bag when it comes to very young painters or you just don't want to clean up hands, clothes and any number of other surfaces. Painting inside a bag still provides a great sensory experience for little hands and produces beautiful artwork to boot. Here my then little baby painted a snowflake. And speaking of snowflakes--my favorite fool-proof way to cut paper snowflakes and teach children to as well is with white coffee filters. The circular shape is a perfect one to begin with, they come in packs large enough to accommodate plenty of fine motor practice and they can be beautifully dyed by coloring with washable marker and spraying with or dipping in water. Once they are dry, they can be hung in the window for a colorful decoration to brighten the season.

Happy crafting!