Tag: diy

Living in the middle of an almost perpetual summer, we have to get a little creative sometimes to make January actually feel like winter! So while the weather was nice and cool one day (in the low 70s), we got outside to do some marble painting, enjoyed cutting snowflakes from them once it was dry, and now our dining room windows give the appearance of winter… as long as you don’t look out and see all the green grass behind them! HA!

So here’s how we did it…

First off, you know how much I love sharing with you about my partners over at Clear Path Paper. They have so many fabulous products that are perfect for projects of all types. Their 100lb white cover stock is PERFECT for painting – heavy enough to stand up to a LOT of liquid. (It does make cutting for super small hands a bit challenging when folded over several times, though, so I DID cut the snowflakes shapes for my youngest, who is almost 6, where my 9 year old had no problems on his own.)

You’ll need:
Clear Path White 100lb Cover, cut in half
Aluminum cake or casserole pan
Marbles
Gray/Blue Paint (we used a washable metallic tempra paint, which has a nice shimmer to it)

Just put a dot of paint on the side of the pan in each color, drop the marbles in, and roll away! Both of my two younger kiddos loved this project, which kept them busy for quite some time while big sis was off at a school extracurricular. My boy loved making this slow-mo video for y’all to see how you can even make curved lines in the paint! Just gotta go slow and steady, and all kinds of fun patterns are possible.

Once the paper is dry, the most basic way to do a snowflake is to fold the paper into a square, cut off the extra, and fold it into quarters. For my little one, she drew where she wanted me to cut, where my middle drew his designs and cut his own snowflake shapes easily. He even cut some squares in half to just play with what he could cut. They don’t look like snowflakes, but they were still fun and we hung them up as “abstract snowflakes” to add a little fun to the window.

Clear Path Paper is now also offering 4×4 (and 4×6) 65lb card stock, which is really cool for smaller projects! I used their royal blue 4×4 65lb to cut some solid blue snowflakes to mix in with their painted ones, and loved how easy it is to fold and cut… it’ll be perfect for my middle man to use for origami, to, because he gets frustrated with thin paper that rips if he gets rough with it, and he loves making TINY things, vs the sizes that regular origami paper usually makes.

Here’s how the windows look… getting us ready mentally to finally have some cold weather coming up early this next week! It actually got down to 30 last night! Whats up with THAT? We don’t know what this thing called cold is! It’s been a couple years since it actually snowed at all here… the kids are hopeful that maybe since we made snowflakes to hang up, maybe just maybe it will actually snow! Time will tell, ha!