Snowman Crafts for Kids

After sharing yesterday's snowman craft, I was thinking about all the snowman crafts I've made over the years. There are dozens. I put some of my favorites into this roundup. 

I particularly like the snowmen that are made from humble supplies: the plastic spoon, the cork, and the burned-out light bulb. But I love the other ones as well. All of these projects bring back lots of happy memories. You can find these, and all of the other snowmen projects I've made, on my Winter Crafts and Christmas Crafts pages. 

Peeking Snowman

I love snowmen. This one is peeking in the window of a cabin. My tutorial includes the materials I used, but feel free to change it up and use markers, crayons, or any other art material you want. Affiliate links below. 

Peeking Snowman

Materials: 

• watercolor paper
• Folk Art acrylic paint - Light Blue
• pencil
• Apple Barrel Paint Pens
• centering ruler

Steps: 

Cut the paper to the size and shape of the window you want. Use a wet brush to moisten the area where the sky goes, then brush a small amount of Light Blue paint horizontally onto the paper. Let the paint dry completely. 

Use a pencil to sketch the outline of the snowman. Use paint pens to color the snowman's hat, scarf, arms, eyes, nose, mouth, and buttons. Add trees - small ones in the background and a larger one in the foreground. I added shadows with the pencil. 

With a brown paint pen, make a window sill by coloring each edge of the paper. Use the centering ruler to mark the center of each edge. Draw a vertical and a horizontal line through those center points to finish the window.  

Decorated Cinnamon Ornaments, Three Ways

Have you ever made the classic cinnamon ornaments? They are fun and easy to make and they smell absolutely amazing. I've made cinnamon ornaments a handful of times, but this time I wanted to experiment with decorating them in three different ways. The results were really interesting! Affiliate links below. 

Cinnamon Ornaments

Materials: 

• 1 container cinnamon (2.37 oz)
• 6 tablespoons applesauce
• plastic wrap
• Christmas cookie cutters
• straw
• needle file
• Folk Art paint, Titanium White
• Folk Art Dots, Whisper White
• Apple Barrel Paint Pens
• twine

Steps: 

Mix the cinnamon and 5 tablespoons of applesauce in a bowl. Add the remaining applesauce if needed to make a smooth ball of dough. (Note: Some people add a tablespoon or two of Elmer's Glue to the dough, allegedly to help the ornaments last longer. I don't find this necessary, but go ahead and try it if you want.)

Roll out dough between two sheets of plastic wrap, to approximately 1/4" thick. Peel off the top sheet of plastic wrap, then cut ornaments from the dough. Use a straw to poke a hole in the top of each. Transfer your ornaments to a baking sheet. Ball up the scrap dough and repeat the steps until the dough is gone. Bake the ornaments at 200°F for about 2 hours. (Alternately, you can air dry them on a wire rack. It will take a day or two.)

Use a needle file to smooth any rough edges. You can see that the tree ornament below has some extra material (especially on the bottom branches) that needs to be removed. This task only takes a minute or two and it smells amazing. 

This is what all of my ornaments looked like after filing. See how much cleaner the tree looks? (Bottom left). 

On to decorating! I used three different products by Plaid to decorate my ornaments. I used Dots for the gingerbread man, star, and dotted tree; the paint pen for the snowman and holly leaf; and the paint for the bell and the other tree. 

As I was decorating, I was comparing the merits of each method. I found the Dots most difficult to control, but you can't beat the vibrancy and coverage. With practice, I could probably do better than the uneven dots and lines I made. The paint pen was the easiest to control, perfect for little details, but I had to let the first coat dry and do a second coat in order to get full coverage. The paint had good opacity and it was relatively easy to make simple lines and designs with a liner brush. 

I let everything dry overnight and ended up with this: 

The ones done with the paint pen are slightly less vibrant, but look at those tiny details. Now that I've tried them all, I'd recommend the paint pen for children, the paint or a paint pen for teens, and the Dots for cake decorators and other people who have spent a lot of time practicing squeezing with uniform pressure. 

The final step is adding hangers to your ornaments. I like the look of twine with these, but you can use ribbon, cording, or whatever else you want. 

The ornaments will last indefinitely, but their scent will fade over time. There are two ways to keep them smelling just as good as when you made them. The first is to gently file the edges and back each year before hanging them on the tree. This will, of course, make the ornaments smaller over time and will eventually cause them to break. Alternately, you can add a tiny drop of cinnamon oil to the back of the ornaments. 

Christmas Name Art

Turn on the holiday music and challenge the kids to turn the letters in their names into Christmas icons. Like all good name art projects, this works with any name and is a fun and creative activity. Affiliate links below. 

Christmas Name Art

Materials:

• Neenah Bristol Vellum
• Ohuhu Kaala Illustration markers
• Sakura fineliner

Steps: 

Use a pencil to lightly write your name in block letters on a piece of bristol vellum. Sketch in details to turn each letter into something associated with Christmas. I made my C into a candy cane, the I into a snowman, the N into gingerbread, the D into a gift, and the Y into an oddly skinny Santa. Other ideas include: an elf, snow on a chimney top, an angel, a reindeer, a sugar cookie, or tree lights. Certain letters are perfect for specific shapes, like a stocking for J or a Christmas tree for A. Feel free to mix upper- and lowercase letters to get the shapes you want. Anything goes!

Once you are happy with your design, color it in. Erase any stray pencil marks, then outline your design with a fineliner. 

Recycled Lid Snow Globe Ornament

I blog about kids' crafts, which means I'm contractually obligated to save all cardboard tubes, empty containers, and plastic lids. You never know when they'll come in handy. Such was the case for this cute snow globe ornament. The clear plastic lid I used was originally on a container of mixed nuts.

Now that humble lid has a place on our Christmas tree. Affiliate links below. 

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Recycled Lid Snow Globe Ornament

Materials:

• plastic lid
• a drawing on cardstock
• scissors
• Diamond Dust
• glittered felt
• black cord
• Supertite glue

Steps: 

Put the plastic lid onto a piece of cardstock, then carefully trace around the outside of the lid. Draw a picture on the cardstock circle. (I used pens for the snowman and the trees, and colored pencil for the sky.) Cut out the circle. 

Cut a piece of cord to match the circumference of the plastic lid. Cut Then cut a trapezoid out of felt for the base of the snow globe. 

Pour some Diamond Dust into the lid, then cover the rim with Supertite. Place the drawing upside down onto the rim and press all the way around the edges to make sure it is completely sealed. Let the glue dry before moving your ornament.

Glue the cord around the circumference of the rim, placing it right on the edge where the lid and the drawing meet. This will help ensure that the Diamond Dust cannot escape. Glue the felt base to the back of the drawing. Cut a short piece of cord and glue it behind the top of the ornament to use as a hanger. 

Give your ornament a shake to create a snowy scene, just like a normal snow globe. Enjoy!

Snowman Light Bulb Craft

I love snowmen. Other than rabbit crafts, I have made more snowman crafts over the years than any other topic. There are snowmen covering just about every surface in our house during the month of December, but there's always room for one more. 

My latest snowman started out as a light bulb in the master bathroom. When it burned out, I painted it white, then painted on an orange nose and black buttons, eyes, and a smile. I decided to dress my snowman with yarn. Here is the tutorial for the little yarn hat. To make the scarf, I braided three pieces of yarn, tied a knot on each end, then unraveled the ends of the yarn right up to the knots. Then I tied the scarf around his neck and trimmed the ends to the length I wanted. 

So cute and so easy!

Personalizing a Diamond Art Kit

I recently finished my latest Diamond Art project. It's a full-drill 12"x12" snowman and I love it! 

I made it with the Snowman Diamond Art kit by Leisure Arts. This is what the finished design looks like if you follow the directions.... 

.... but I'm not much of a 'follow the directions' person when it comes to crafts (or cooking, for that matter). Here are the two designs side-by-side. See if you can spot all the changes I made.

  

There are five major changes: 

• replaced the light blues and creams in the scarf and hat with darker blues and purples
• turned the stubby red nose to an orange carrot
• changed the buttons from red to black
• thickened the arms so they weren't so spindly
• removed the dark blue mountain and moved some clouds in the background on the left

So how did I do it? The first step was deciding what changes I wanted to make. Then I used the colors provided with the kit to fill in anything that I DIDN'T want to change. With those elements completed, I dug through my Diamond Art storage and chose colors for the items I did want to change. 

Below, you can see that I've filled in the background and changed the nose, arm, and buttons. The red vertical stripes in the scarf are complete, so my next step was filling in with blues (and eventually purples). It took a little bit of trial and error to make things look the way I wanted, but it is really easy to pop up the gems after you've placed them if you aren't satisfied. 

I love the way the hat and scarf turned out. I'm happy with the carrot nose, too. In fact, my only complaint about changing up the colors is that there are a few places where the original canvas color shows through. You can see this in the black buttons - the area around them is clearly red. You can also see a tiny bit of red at the bottom of the snowman's arm where I widened it. I can live with that. 

With the Diamond Art and Diamond Dotz Freestyle Program, you can make your own design completely from scratch, or do like I did and alter a kit with a few replacement colors. I love the flexibility. Diamond Art is so much fun. 

Pillow Party 2019

I love a creative challenge, so when I was invited to join up with 24 other craft bloggers for a Holiday Pillow Party, I jumped right in! Each of us received pillows and other goodies from Fairfield World with the instructions to decorate our pillows for the holidays. I love seeing what everyone made! Based on what you know about me, can you pick out mine?

If you guessed that I made the snowmen family portrait, you're right! Follow the steps to make your own. Affiliate links (and a big giveaway!) below. 

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Snowmen Family Portrait Pillow

Materials: 

• Fairfield Poly-Fil 20" Pillow 
• Apple Barrel paint - Cloudless
• felt - white and black
• Beacon FabriTac
• Stickles - black, orange, brown, blue, green, red, pink
• leftover Diamond Dotz by Leisure Arts (color 5001)
• tacky glue

Steps: 

Remove the Poly-Fil from the pillow and put it temporarily into the bag the pillow came in.

In a shallow disposable tray, mix paint with 1 cup of water. You want a completely liquid consistency, but not so diluted that it won't color the pillow. Dip the top half of the pillow into the paint. After the paint has soaked in, spread the pillow case flat to let it dry. (I did this on the lawn so I wouldn't make a mess indoors.)

Meanwhile, cut out snowmen to represent each member of the family. Use black Stickles for eyes, mouths, and buttons; orange Stickles for carrot noses, and pink Stickles for bunny ears. I also added our family colors to the snowmen's hats. 

When the pillow and the Stickles were dry, I used the Beacon glue to attach the felt to the pillow. Then I used the brown Stickles to add arms.

While the arms were drying, I added my leftover Dotz to the sky to make snowflakes. They're hard to see in the picture, but they add so much sparkle in real life! 

Finally, I re-stuffed the pillow.  

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I had so much fun making my pillow, but it was even more fun to check out all the other designers' pillows. There's so much talent out there! Each pillow is so different from the others.

If you'd like to make your own pillow (or anything else crafty), I have good news for you! You can enter this Rafflecopter giveaway for a chance to be the lucky one to win a $100 gift card to Michaels and 10 pounds of Poly-Fil. Good luck, everyone!

Family Name Snowman

This is my latest piece of holiday art. It combines three of my favorites: snowmen, name art, and my family!

Our family of three fits nicely in a traditional snowman. If there were just two of us, I'd have put our names in the bottom two parts and drawn a face in the top one. If you have more family members, add an extra ball of snow, put a name in the hat, or if your family is large, make two snowman!

This is the sketch I doodled when I first came up with the idea. I stayed very true to my original plan, which does not always happen.

To make your own, use a pencil to draw a snowman on a piece of white paper. Write the names inside, curving the letters to match the curves of the snowman. (I found it easiest to draw the circles first, then put the names inside them. When I tried writing the names and drawing the circles around them, the spacing was weird.) 

When you are happy with the lettering, trace over it with a Sharpie, then erase the pencil marks. (Alternately, use a window or a light box to trace your design on a separate sheet of paper so that you don't have to do any erasing.) Cut out the completed snowman. 

Use black construction paper to piece together a top hat, then accent it with a little piece of holly cut from construction paper. Cut a scarf from red construction paper. Cut a strip of white construction paper to make the snowy base the snowman is sitting on. 

Now it is time to assemble everything onto the blue background paper. Glue the snow down. Glue the scarf to the back of the snowman, then glue the snowman to the background paper. Add the hat and your art is ready to display!

Lollipop Snowman Spoon Craft

'Tis the season for snowmen! Not actual ones, as it's 60°F here in northern California. Snowman crafts. In this case, a spoon turned into a snowman.

He's hiding a lollipop. 

These make fun present toppers and they're really easy to do. There are affiliate links in materials list below; I will receive a small commission on any purchases you make, at no extra cost to you. 

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Lollipop Snowman Spoon Craft

Materials: 

• plastic spoon
• black Enamel Accents
• construction paper - black, red, green, and orange
• microtip scissors
• Orange Stickles
• craft glue
• striped pipe cleaner
• lollipop
• wire snippers

Steps:

Squeeze two dots of Enamel Accents onto the spoon to make the eyes. Add five dots for the mouth, starting with the center dot to help with spacing. (If you stop at this point, you have a ghost!)

Enamel Accents is self-leveling and creates perfect little dots. It dries pretty quickly and stays on well. I don't use Enamel Accents often, but when I do I always remember right away why I love it. 

Cut a triangle of orange paper for the nose. Add a coat of Stickles for sparkle. This is optional, of course, but it makes it look so much better. Set it aside to dry. 

While the Enamel Accents and Stickles dry, make the snowman's hat. For the hat, you need a black square, a red rectangle, a black rectangle, and a tiny holly leaf. Microtip scissors come in handy. I cut two leaves and wasn't happy with the one on the right, so I just used one on the snowman. (BTW, I took a photo of all the materials, but not one of just the hat supplies. Sorry.) 

Glue the hat pieces together, then trim the brim if needed. Glue the hat and the nose to the spoon. When those are dry, twist the pipe cleaner tightly around the spoon and the lollipop, then arrange the ends to look like a scarf. Trim any excess with wire snippers. (Do not use scissors on pipe cleaners, unless you like replacing scissors frequently.)

Hurray for snowman season!

Snowman Gift Tags

I love snowmen.  I have a huge collection of snowmen and always make lots of snowman-inspired crafts before Christmas.  This year, I started off my holiday crafting with snowman gift tags. Aren't they cute?  Other than a lot of drying time, they are very easy to make. Affiliate links below. 

Snowman Gift Tags

Materials:

• white tags
• orange cardstock 
• scissors
• orange Stickles
• Sharpies (gold, red, green)
• Stickles (gold, red, green)
• black Enamel Accents
• Snow-Tex (Decorative Snow)
• Pop Dots
• cording (gold, red, green)

Steps: 

Color the top third of each tag to make the snowmen's hats.  No need to do a good job, as you're just providing a base color for the Stickles. 

Paint a layer of Stickles over the ink. Use the black Enamel Accents to create the snowmen's faces, being careful not to touch the wet Stickles. Set the tags aside to dry.

In the meantime, cut triangle noses from orange cardstock. Apply a layer of orange Stickles and set aside to dry.

When the tags and noses are dry to the touch, use Pop Dots to put the noses in place. 

Apply Snow-Tex (a textured paint that looks like faux snow) to the edges of the hats. Set the tags aside until they are completely dry.

Add cording and attach to a gift. All done and super cute!