How to celebrate a SNOW DAY

Today I am having my first snow day off from school this winter.  I live in an area that receives a pretty good amount of snow each year, but this year we have been way under our usual totals .  Meanwhile in areas that are south and east of us, have gotten way more than their share.   

Based on the national weather map, there are MILLIONS of kids who are celebrating having at least one snow day this week.  Ten years ago almost to the day, I shared the Snow Day party that I threw for my kids here on the blog.  All of the ideas, and treats are still perfect for today, so I am sharing them again.  

In the picture at the top of the page, we built a snowman using styrofoam balls, pipe cleaners, google eyes, and scrap fabric. 

My daughter and I made the drinking cups but drawing snowman faces and names on them.  

I covered the table with white craft paper and gave the kids cups of crayons to draw winter themed pictures. 

We cut up printer paper into several snowflake designs that we could hang up. 

We had a create a snowman station out of marshmallows, donuts, pretzels, candy and food writers. 

Here is just one of the yummy finished treats.  

Our food was entirely snow related as well.  Most of the ingredients I already had on hand. 

We made snowman pretzel rods by dipping them in white chocolate and adding mini chocolate chips and gummy candy.  The bears are sledding on Nilla wafers in vanilla pudding bowls. 

The snowmen pizzas were made with English muffins and mozzarella cheese.  The faces are black olive slices and piece or orange pepper. 

Slice bananas, mini chocolate chips were easily put together as snowmen on a stick. 

To warm up after playing in the snow we enjoyed hot chocolate with lots of mini marshmallows. Yum! 

Over the years I have had a few other snow themed posts that were not included in the original party, but would be a good addition to your snow day celebration.  

snowman pretzels

Olaf the Marshmallowman

Elsa's Ice Candy

Sweet Snowflakes

   sock snowman

Happy Snow Day and STAY SAFE! 

Read More »

Sock Snowmen

This week is turning out to be another bumpy one.  Since I have not had a lot of time to make projects, I hope you will understand why I am doing some multitasking for today's posts. Every Thursday morning I meet with some women from church for a social meeting. One week a month we meet for a devotional lesson, another week we meet for coffee. Some weeks we do a special project like decorate the church for a foster child Christmas party, or help someone with a special chore.   I really look forward to my time each week with some wonderful ladies.  This week we met at the church for a devotional and craft. While these snowmen  are not an original idea, they were so fun and easy to make, I thought they would make a good craft post.   I took these photos with my cell phone as I was making my snowmen at the meeting.   

If you want to make your snowman a decent size, you will want to use men's white tube sock.  You can recycle a sock you already have, or buy one at the dollar store.  Cut the sock to the left of the heel. Using a piece of string, tie the end of the side with the heel.  I actually could have tied my sock closer to the end, but realized it after I had knotted the string.  The ribbed part of the sock will become the snowmen, so tying it down as far as I did  will make a smaller snowman.  

Here is a better view of the tied sock.  Turn the sock half inside out before tying it.  When you turn it right side out again, the tied end will become the bottom of the snowman.  

Once the sock is right side out, fill it almost to the top with rice.  The rice gives the snowman some weight and substance.  You might also be able to find cheap bags of rice at the dollar store.   Do you notice how this sock had a logo on it?  Well that is not a problem, because it will be covered up later by his hat. 

Tie the top of the sock tightly with a piece of string. Once you have the top secured, tie another piece around the sock to form the neck and head.  

Roll up the remaining part of the sock to form a knit cap.  Once you have your basic snowman shape, you can get creative with how you decorate him.   We used decorative straight pins for the eyes and nose.  If you have small children who will want to be playing with the snowman, you might want to use something else for the face.  The scarf can be made from ribbon, fabric, fleece or felt.  Some of my friends added buttons on their snowman bellies, I chose to leave them off.  

When all of our snowmen took their group photo, we noticed that while we all made the same basic snowman, each one looked a little bit different. They all seemed to have their own personality.  How will you decorate your snowman?  

Read More »

How to make a Snowman Christmas Tree - Feature of the Day

We got our first snow of the season today. While it was just a dusting, the northern part of our state got over two feet of the white stuff this week.  When I saw this White Snowman tree by Project Goble I knew I had to feature it.  It was a part of a Christmas Tree contest and was put together with items they already had. I love the extra touch of the little red bird. Be sure to stop over to Project Goble to see how he was put together.   Thank you so much Allison for linking up this awesome project to Dare to Share!

Read More »

Clay Pot Snowman Craft

Even though I am very tired of snow this winter, and I never tired of cute snowmen crafts. This sweet snowman was made by Danielle of Peanut Life Adventures.  They are not that difficult to make, so this would be a great craft for older kids.  You can read more about the Clay Pot Snowman Craft and Peanut Life Adventures here.  Thanks so much for linking up to Dare to Share  Danielle! 

Read More »

It's a Frozen Party!

Did you see the movie Frozen yet?  We finally had the chance a few days ago.  Even though we got a lot of snow on the pre-scheduled date, Kara and I braved the snowy roads and cold to meet some friends for the movie. We were both very glad that we did..  We LOVED it!  Part of the reason why this movie is so much fun is because of the lovable snowman Olaf.  This picture of this adorable scene was taken at our local movie theater. I am going to try and make a smaller version during Frozen party week.  

We are currently snowed in at my house  just like Arendelle was in the movie, which makes the timing of this party even more fun.. (though some of my ideas will have to wait until we dig out enough to so I can get to the store.) The scary thing about this picture was that it was taken about 4 p.m., it is now 11 p.m. and we got a lot more snow.  I will share the after picture in the next post.  Tonight on the news they were saying that my area got at least a foot of snow of today.  And unlike Elsa.. the cold does bother me anyway! 

For this first day of Frozen week, I am going to share some of the highlights from my Snow Day/Snowman party from a few years ago. Any of these ideas would work  with the Frozen party theme as well.  You can see the full post of the party here.

I made a snowman centerpiece out of styrofoam balls and basic craft supplies.  You can see how to put him together in this post here.    I drew snowman faces on styrofoam cups and write the kids names on the back, so they could keep track of their own cup. 

I went through all of my goodies, and made a make a snowman bar. I put out anything that the kids could use to make an edible snowman.

Here were some of the creations we came up with.  They were fun to make, and fun to eat.  

The kids also loved their snowman themed lunch. We had snowman pizza, snowmen made from bananas, pretzel snowmen, and teddy grahams sledding in bowls of vanilla yogurt. 

Stay tuned for more ideas to come! 

Read More »

Snowman Centerpiece

Today we made a snowman centerpiece out of things found at the dollar store and around the house.

Read More »