Craft Jr. » winter crafts

Kids Winter Crafts

Wendy Piersall — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:00:59 +0000

Winter is the most difficult time of year to live in Chicago. It seems to stretch on for an eternity – we’ve even gotten snow in May! So for days with a house full of kids with cabin fever, I need to be especially creative to keep them busy (and not hitting each other with remote controls). I’ve been enamored lately with my son’s Tony Hawk skateboard video game as a great way to keep them active while indoors. But my girls are more into crafts, so here is a great group of them for kids of all ages.

Preschool Winter Crafts


Preschool Penguin Craft	Rainbow Ice Winter Craft	Preschool Ice Skate Craft	Pinecone Birdfeeder Craft

Winter Crafts for Kids


Sock Puppet	Winter Igloo Craft	Glove Puppets	Lacy Ice Craft

Winter Crafts for Teens & Tweens


Make Fizzie Bath Balls	Felted Sweater Mittens	Easy Felted Slippers	No Sew Slipper Socks

Be sure to check out our awesome Valentine crafts, too!

Bird Feeder Craft for Kids

Lorna Doone Brewer — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:33:41 +0000

This pine cone bird feeder craft is easy enough for kids to make

The hardest part of making this pine cone bird feeder craft was finding bird seed in bags of less than 5-zillion pounds! My daughter loved it and was actually able to help quite a bit.

Related Pages: More Pinecone Crafts, Stick Crafts, Make Fairy Houses

What you need to make a simple bird feeder:

A pine cone
Peanut butter
(Note – use soy butter instead if your child has a peanut allergy!)
Ribbon
Bird seed
Plastic baggie

How to make a pine cone bird feeder

Start by cutting a ribbon about 24″ in length. The idea is to make it so that squirrels can’t easily reach your delicious bird seed. I think it’s better to attach the ribbon first so that you don’t get peanut butter and seeds everywhere later on.

Move a couple of layers from the top of the pine cone and tie the ribbon around tightly.

Next, smear peanut butter all over your pine cone bird feeder. This part is kind of messy. We worked to make sure we got some peanut butter in between the various layers of the pine cone for maximum bird seed coverage.

Peanut butter will make the bird seed stick to your pine cone.

Place your gooey pine cone into a bag of bird seed, hold the top shut, and shake.

(Leave the ribbon sticking out of the top of the bag so it doesn’t get covered in peanut butter.)

The seeds stick to the peanut butter to cover your pine cone.

Take it outside and hang it from a tree with the ribbon loop you created. We put ours right outside the kitchen window so we can see if any birds come to enjoy a snack.

ETA: I may just need to face reality and rename this post “Squirrel Feeder Craft for Kids.” *sigh*

The view that greeted me from my kitchen window this morning.

Teen Crafts

Wendy Piersall — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:32:15 +0000

This last holiday season was an eye opener for me as a mom of three crafty kids. This year my oldest started high school. And suddenly, the crafts I had planned to do with the kids weren’t very interesting to her anymore. (On a side note, I sometimes wonder if aliens have taken my daughter and stuck me with a rebellious, cranky replacement).

So lately I’ve been working on finding projects for my teen daughter that are challenging enough for her not to be bored, but easy enough to give her a sense of accomplishment. She is turning into a little seamstress lately, but I’m hoping to widen her horizons with some of the teen-friendly crafts I’ve found below!

12 Crafts for Teens that are Easy But Cool

For more teen crafts, check out these recycled crafts and winter crafts, too.

Olympics Crafts

Wendy Piersall — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:45:30 +0000

We here in Chicago were very sad to lose our bid to host the 2016 summer Olympic games, but are excited to know that the Vancouver games are right around the corner! My most favorite event of all the games is women’s figure skating – can’t wait to see what new talent emerges in February!

Olympics Crafts for Kids

Here are four Summer Olympic and Winter Olympic crafts for all Olympic Games:


Olympic Torch Kids Craft	Paper Plate Olympic Rings Craft	Olympic Medals Craft	Olympic Flags Craft for Kids

Vancouver 2010 Olympics Crafts

Have you checked out yet the absolutely adorable Vancouver Olympics Mascots site? Their names are Miga, Quatchi and Sumi, and they are so freaking cute I can hardly stand it!

Vancouver 2010 Olympic Mascots


Vancouver Olympics Craft - Sumi Paper Craft	Vancouver Olympics Craft - Quatchi Paper Craft	Vancouver Olympics Craft - Miga Paper Craft	First Nations Totem Pole Craft

Olympics Party Game

Check out our free winter Olympics bingo game over at Classroom Jr.!

Olympics Bingo Cards

More Olympics Printables

Olympic Medal Count Worksheet

Olympic Word Search

Printable Training Journal

Vancouver Printables and Olympics Activities

Snowflake Crafts

Wendy Piersall — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:29:02 +0000

Even in years when I’m not feeling very creative or crafty, somehow we always find the time to make snowflake crafts in our family. My kids are expert paper snowflake makers, and many of our tree ornaments are snowflake crafts. Snowflakes are just so incredibly beautiful and timeless that it’s hard to resist being inspired by them. I know it’s a little early to think about snow (yikes!!), but I don’t have a lot of Christmas and winter crafts posted yet, so I’m trying to get as much of a head start as possible!

Paper Snowflakes


Paper Snowflake Craft	Paper Snowflake Tutorial	Snowflake Mobile	10 Printable Snowflake Templates

Snowflake Crafts for Kids


String Snowflake Craft	Beaded Snowflake Bracelet	Polymer Clay Snowflake Ornaments	Pretty Snowflake Decorations

Pipe Cleaner Snowflakes	Easy Q-Tip Snowflake Craft	Preschool Snowflake Painting	Cute Button Snowflake Ornament

More Winter Crafts

You might also like my paper plate penguin craft, printable snowflake pinwheels or these easy Christmas handprint crafts, too. I also have a lot of Christmas coloring pages over on Animal Jr.!

Preschool Christmas Crafts: Paper Plate Penguin

Wendy Piersall — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:44:48 +0000

Penguins are one of my kids’ favorite animals. Whenever we go to the zoo, going to the penguin house is a MUST!

Here’s a really cute Christmas craft of a paper plate penguin that is easy enough for preschoolers to make.

Paper Plate Penguin Preschool Craft

What You Need to Make a Paper Plate Penguin:

Two paper plates
Scissors
Glue
Orange and black paint, crayons or markers
Googly eyes (optional)

How to Make a Paper Plate Penguin:

1. Cut up a paper plate as shown. This craft uses every piece you cut out so don’t throw anything away!

Paper plate penguin craft template

2. Paint the two wings black and the three triangles orange.

3. Paint a black v-shaped ‘hairline’ on the penguin’s head as shown.

4. After the paint has dried, glue the two wings onto the top rim of second paper plate, the big orange triangle onto the penguin face for it’s beak, and the two small orange triangles onto the bottom rim of the plate for it’s feet.

5. Glue two googly eyes above the penguin’s beak, or just color them onto the face if you don’t have any googly eyes laying around.

For more preschool Christmas crafts, try these easy Christmas handprint crafts, or the penguin coloring page in this set of winter bird coloring pages.

Christmas Keepsake Family Plate Craft

Wendy Piersall — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:18:38 +0000

Even though Thanksgiving is still two weeks away, I’m finding that my Christmas crafts are getting a lot of traffic. So for all you early birds, I shall stop with the turkeys and get on with the holiday merriment.

I absolutely love this craft I did last weekend with the family. Technically you could also use it for a Hanukkah craft, too. It was super simple and easy to paint, and took very little time as well. This is the kind of thing that I am going to bring out every year with a warm smile on my face, remembering when our thumbprints were these sizes:

Family Keepsake Plate Craft

What You Need to Make This Christmas Family Plate

Like these Thanksgiving painted plates, all you need are Folk Art Enamel paints in blue, white, orange and extra dark purple (or black), a plain white plate from your local dollar store, and paint brushes. Oh, and thumbs. Make sure you get the Enamel paints, they get baked onto the plate.

How to Paint the Penguin Family Christmas Plate

First, mix the light blue paint together with a tiny bit of blue paint in some white paint. I left them slightly unmixed for the streaked effect in the background. Paint the area shown in the example plate above in light blue. Since it would be hard to get a clean edge by hand, I just left the brush strokes on the outside to transition the painting to the plate.

Next, paint the bottom ‘snow hill’ with straight white paint in a wavy line, then feather the edges like you did for the blue paint.

Next get the family lined up and start painting thumbs! I went from largest to smallest (Dad, Mom, Big Sis, Brother, Little Sis). You do need a generous amount of paint for the thumbprints, but don’t let it glob up on the plate, otherwise it will crack while baking.

Penguin Family Plate Detail

Next, with a small detail paint brush and the dark purple (or black) paint, put two wings, a ‘V’ shaped hairline, and eyes on each penguin. Then dot two feet in place and a tiny triangle for the beak.

I thought the plate looked a little plain at this point, so I dabbed snowflakes randomly all over the background with the white paint. Then I put a ring of dark purple polka dots around the rim and added “2009″ at the bottom. I could have also labeled each penguin with a name, but liked it enough just as is.

Let it dry for about an hour, then bake according to the Enamel paint directions.

You can’t eat off of this plate, but if you cover it with a cute napkin, I’m sure that Santa would LOVE to eat cookies off of it every year! Mine is probably going into a plate holder and onto my mantel.

Be sure to also check out our Christmas recipes, more Christmas crafts, or our huge amount of Christmas coloring pages!

Football Crafts

Wendy Piersall — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:46:20 +0000

These days, our weekends are revolving around when the Bears game is on TV. I personally don’t really like watching the game, but I love hearing football on in the house on fall weekends. It totally gets me in the mood for colder weather. Weird, I know.


Blank Printable Football Helmet	Make a Football Fan Bobblehead	Fun Football Cookies	Football Coloring Pages

Football Team Spirit Pins	Stuffed Paper Footballs	Super Bowl Centerpiece Craft	Football Toilet Paper Roll Craft

Paper Plate Football Craft	Football Door Hangers	Favorite Football Team Scoreboard	Football Pen Holder Craft

You might also like this awesome ‘Find the Footballs’ hidden picture printable from Printables4Kids!

Leap Year Activities and Party Ideas

Wendy Piersall — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:54:28 +0000

Do you ever wonder why the people who created our yearly calendar so many centuries ago didn’t just make every year 1/4 day longer? I sure do. Adding a day every four years always seemed a little silly to me. But at least it gives frogs a day to call their own.

Famous Leap Year birthdays and Leap Day events. And here are even more Leap Year games.

Check out the rest of our party crafts and coloring pages while you are here, too!


Easy No Knit Scarf	Easy Friendship Bracelets	No Sew Bikini (Really!)	Make Decorated Journals

Wishbone Necklace	Ribbon Belts	Recycled Jeans Purse	Night Light Recycled Craft

Decoupaged Clothespins	Decoupaged Hangers – via	Glitter Flip Flops	No Sew Fleece Pillows


Frog Paper Plate Craft	Frog Paper Bag Craft	Froggy Catch Game	Musical Lily Pads

Leap Year Coloring Page	Frog and Fly Game	Frog Dominoes	Frog Coloring Pages

Sherbet the Frog Dessert	Frog Cupcakes	Flippin’ Frogs Game	Leap Frog Bingo