Winter Craft

It is cold out.  Not chilly or brisk. Bone chilling, mind numbing, painfully cold.  So we aren’t venturing out much lately.  However that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy nature. We won’t be building any fairy houses or taking any nature walks anytime soon but  Dawn has done a great deal to inspire me to be more of a nature mom and in small, baby steps I am getting there.

On Monday it was a balmy -4 with the windchill (BBRRRRR). So I braved the cold and gathered some materials for the children.

There are some evergreens, juniper, some seed pods, dried cone hydrangea, rhodedendron and pine cones.  This is all stuff I gathered in two minutes from around the yard.  Then I put out those tin cake pans (pie pans would work) and some craft yarn.

The kids then placed their selections in the pans and arranged them nicely. They folded the yarn in half and left a long loop hanging outside the pan.  Then we filled the pans about 1/4 of the way with water and set them outside on the deck.  Once the water froze up enough to keep the nature items steady I filled the pans to the brim.

Tuesday morning the pans were frozen through and we popped the tin pans off of our ice blocks.

Now we have these really pretty, icy sun catchers hanging around the outside of the house.  The upside of the frigid temperatures will be them lasting a while.

Kelli’s

Ryan’s

Katie’s

Erin’s

I can’t tell you how much I am enjoying watching these sun catchers when I look out my kitchen window or when I am sitting at the dining room table.

Now I can’t take credit for this craft because I found it in an adorable book Crafts to Make in Winter by Kathy Ross that I took out of the library.  I am hoping to do a few more crafts celebrating the season soon.