Outdoor Winter Crafts for Kids

Get the kids outdoors to have fun this winter. There is a great big world out there away from the television and video games. It is time to remind our kids how much fun there is outside.

Take a moment and reminisce about the days of your youth. Remember the feeling of exhilaration when Mom let you know school was out for a snow day. Do the same for your children and bring a smile to their faces on the next snow day. Plan an afternoon full of fun in the snowy outdoors. Take a ride down the hillside on a toboggan, snow tube down the mountain or just spend the afternoon in the backyard doing a variety of outdoor winter crafts.

Birdseed Mosaic

Create your own mosaic garden of birdseed. Not only will it look beautiful in your yard, but also gorgeous winter birds like cardinals will flock to your lawn in search of their favorite treats. Use a small shovel, your hands or even your body to design an outline of any shape. Fill the outline with birdseed. Use seed in various colors and types to define the different areas of the design. Create additional embellishment to your mosaic using stones, pine, red berries or grapevine.

Icy Sun Catchers

Design your own sun catchers using only water, food coloring and ribbon. Fill ice cube trays, in any shape or size, with water. Add a few drops of food coloring to the ice cube spaces and stir each with a toothpick to combine the coloring with the water. Freeze the trays. Remove the colored ice cubes from the trays when frozen. Pour water into a round cake pan, filling it about half way. Position the colored ice cubes in a decorative fashion around the water. Place a cup full of water inside the edge of the pan, leaving about two inches of space between the cup and the pan. Freeze the pan with the cup of water in place. Remove the circle of colored ice from the cake pan and take the cup out of the ice. String a ribbon through the hole left by the cup and hang your homemade icy sun catcher outside.

Snow Castles

Who says you should only build castles out of sand? Bring a bit of summer into winter and build your castle out of snow instead. Snow packs better, it lasts longer and it glistens beautifully in the moonlight. Don't bother putting away the sand pails, shovels and rakes, keep them out year round to create the castle of your dreams out of snow when the beach just isn't an option.

Snow Paintings

Help your children bring out their inner Picasso in the snow. Mix one part acrylic or craft paint with one part warm water. Pour each color mixture into clean, plastic squirt bottles. Use the squirt bottles to "paint" pictures in the snow. You could even create a snow castle and use the squirt paint to decorate the castle in your favorite colors. Use washable craft paint to prevent staining of your children's snow clothes.