Snowflake Crafts I Love

Winter break is almost upon us and to keep the little hands in my house busy I’m pulling together some much needed, screen-free activities including these fun snowflake crafts.

Pipe Cleaner Snowflakes

Ingredients:

• pipe cleaners (I like to use silver, blue, and white, but really any will work)

• scissors

• beads (again, I like to use blue, white, and silver if I can find them but anything will work)

• stickers or jewels (optional)

• hot glue or glue dots

Instructions:

1. I like to make different sized snowflakes so I take some and cut them in half and others I leave whole.

2. If you are using the whole pieces you will need 4 pipe cleaners for each snowflake. If you cut them in half, you only need 2 pipe cleaners.

3. Take one pipe cleaner and bend it in half, then take another pipe cleaner and twist it around the first one. Repeat this step two more times to make the base of your snowflake. Note: These can be pretty enough on their own, but in the next step you can embellish them if you choose.

4. Next, either string beads onto the pipe cleaners (great for fine motor skills) or glue jewels onto them in whatever pattern you choose. Note: You can also do this with popsicle sticks for another version. Tie a ribbon on one and they instantly become an ornament!

Watercolor Snowflakes

Ingredients:

• water color paper

• white crayon

• water

• water colors

• paintbrush

Instructions:

1. Start with your paper and crayon. Using the white crayon draw snowflakes all over the paper, big small, different kinds, use your imagination!

2. Take a bit of water, a paintbrush, and the water colors and paint over the paper. It will reveal the snowflakes you drew in step 1. I love to use this technique for all sorts of activities: Secret messages, treasure hunts, letter and number reveals, really anything! The kids love it because equal parts art and science.

Make Your Own Snow

Ingredients:

• shaving cream

• baking soda

• bowl

Instructions:

1. Take your shaving cream and baking soda and mix it together in the bowl. Shape it until it feels like snow. You can also put it in the refrigerator for awhile to make it cold like snow.

2. Mix in glitter or pom poms, jewels, anything

   wintry. Make snowmen with it and use cut outs to build a snowman. Use it with cookie cutters, little figures, use your imagination and have fun.

Q-Tip Painting

Ingredients:

• blue paper

• Q-tips

• white paint

• glitter (optional)

Instructions:

1. Take a bit of white paint and dip your Q-tip into it. Start to dot a snowflake or snowflakes onto your blue paper, which is your sky.

2. For smaller children, from the Internet print out snowflake examples or draw some to trace with the Q-tip and paint.

3. When the paint is still damp, sprinkle with glitter if you wish for an extra sparkle. Discard glitter that does not stick.

Classic Snowflakes

Ingredients:

• square paper (blue or white) or I like to use coffee filters for little hands

• scissors

• patterns like these

Instructions:

1. Take your coffee filter and flatten it out. Fold it in half, then in half again, and then in thirds so it forms a triangle. You can also use square paper or create your own by cutting a piece of paper into a square. To do this, take your piece of paper and fold one corner to the opposite side and cut the edge that is leftover.

2. Using your scissors cut different shapes and cut outs along the edges just making sure not to cut through the entire triangle. Unfold and voila! These are magic.