DIY Snow Paint
This DIY snow paint is SO FUN to paint with, and really easy to make! Mix up a batch of your own puffy snow paint in just a few minutes and use this glimmering and fluffy paint to create your own wintery scenes.
This snow paint actually dries puffy without losing its raised texture. And the glitter in the paint makes it look like ice crystals, which makes it even more fun! It’s such a cool winter craft, and a great sensory experience that allows kids to create 3D paintings.
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How to Make Snow Paint
Materials:
Optional materials:
Equipment:
- Fork(or whisk)
- Empty squeeze bottle(optional)
Instructions:
Step 1: Find what you need
- Gather your supplies and materials.
Step 2: Make the snow paint
- Pour in 1 part glue into your bowl. (We added about 1/3 cup.)
- Add 1/2 teaspoon flour to the glue.If you’re making a bigger batch of snow paint, increase the amount of flour accordingly.
- Add 2 parts shaving cream (the foamy kind) to the bowl. Since we added 1/3 cup glue, we added about 2/3 cup of shaving foam. We find it too tough and messy to measure out the glue and shaving cream exactly. As long as your proportions are roughly 1 part glue to 2 parts shaving cream, you’ll be good.
- Add a generous amount of clear glitter to the bowl.
- Use a fork or a whisk to stir the snow paint together.
- If you think your paint needs to be more glittery, pour in even more glitter and stir to combine.
Step 3: Paint a snow man
- To use the snow paint dip a large paintbrush into the paint, picking some up on the brush.
- We decided to paint a snowman on light blue cardstock. Start with the snowman’s head, making a circle with the paint.
- Next paint a larger circle below the head for the snowman’s body. Use the brush to smooth out the edges of the circle and adjust the size as needed.
Step 4: Decorate your snowman
- We decided to cut out pieces from craft foam sheets to decorate our snowman.From black foam cut 2 tiny circles for the snowman’s eyes, 2 larger circles for the buttons, and a top hat.From red foam cut out a scarf, and from orange foam cut a triangular carrot nose. Finally, from brown foam cut out tree branch style arms.
- Decorate the snowman with the cut foam pieces. Anything that goes directly onto the snowman will stick by itself, since the paint has glue in it.For the top hat, add glue on to the top part that will stick directly on the paper.
- Place the hat into place at the top or side of the snowman’s head.
- Paint some more snow on the “ground” below the snowman, and add little dots of snow paint in the sky.
- If you’d like your painting to be extra glittery you can sprinkle a bit more glitter on top of the snow paint for a freshly fallen snow look.
Step 5: Paint on templates with the snow paint
- Print off a tree template (find all the template links in the optional materials list above) or draw a tree shape on blue cardstock.Add snow paint to decorate the branches and base of the tree.
- Draw a Christmas tree or use one of our templates to cut out a Christmas tree shape. Glue it to the cardstock and add snow paint on the tree.
- To create thinner lines of snow paint you can add the paint to a squeeze bottle.
- Use the squeeze bottle to add paint along the outline of a snowflake template.
- Your snow paintings are complete!
Helpful Tips:
- Using a fork or whisk to mix the snow paint helps to preserve its fluffiness.
- Add a drop or 2 of peppermint extract or essential oil to the paint for an extra sensory experience.
Free printable templates to use with snow paint:
Click the links below to find the templates we used with our DIY snow paint! The templates are free to download and print.
>>> Christmas Tree Template <<<
We traced the large Christmas tree outline #1 on green paper before adding it to the blue paper and painting around it.
>>> Tree Template <<<
We used this tree outline last year for our easy tree painting post! It was so fun see our autumn tree turn into a snow covered scene.
>>> Snowflake Template <<<
Snow paint is the perfect paint to use for making snowflakes! We used a squeeze bottle to paint the fine lines on Large Line Snowflake #1.
How long does this snow paint last?
This DIY snow paint is definitely best if used within the first few hours after making it. After that, the shaving cream begins to lose its foaminess. You can probably cover the snow paint and use it again the next day, but it won’t be as nice to work with.
Does the snow paint stay puffy?
This snow paint stays completely puffy after it dries, though it does shrink a little bit. We made our snow art a week ago, and it’s still nice and puffy. The paint becomes hard after it dries, but it stays raised and fluffy looking!
What’s the best paper to use with snow paint?
We definitely recommend painting on cardstock or cardboard, especially if you need to move the painting while it’s still wet. Cardstock can handle the moisture from the paint a lot better than thinner paper.
Regular printer paper will work if that’s all you have, but the snow paint does make the paper a bit soggy. Only use printer paper if you can leave the painting in place until it dries. And keep in mind that thinner paper will warp and wrinkle a bit as it dries.
How to paint with puffy snow paint?
We mostly used a large paintbrush with our snow paint. A bigger brush allows you to add a larger amount of paint to the page at one time.
If you want to paint in smaller areas, either use a fine point paintbrush, or put the paint in a squeeze bottle, like we did for tracing the snowflake template.
You can also add the snow paint onto paper with a sponge, a spoon, or even your hands!
This snow paint is soft, squishy, and so much fun to experiment with! Use this snow paint on templates or create your own drawing.
You can even add accessories to your snow painting, like we did with our snowman. Craft foam pieces look great, but you can also add buttons, pipe cleaners, pom poms, googly eyes, or felt!
Here’s even more winter craft ideas:
Salt and Watercolor Snowflake Art
Our book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids is loaded with 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple!
