Brr! We’ve been struggling to stay warm (and dry) this winter here in usually-sunny Southern California, so I’ve been looking for some good indoor activities for the kiddos to keep the winter blues away! I stumbled upon a tutorial for DIY photo snow globes on Our Best Bites and wanted to give it a try for myself. My kids are always mystified by snow globes, so I thought this would be a great activity to entertain them all.
Note that this DIY activity will need a heavy “mom hand” as it involves hot glue, but there are plenty of fun aspects your kids can help you with in the creation of these handmade snow globes!
A day or two prior to making the actual snow globes, your first order of business will be to photograph your kid(s) in winter gear. It can be cute if they are looking up at the snow falling or catching snowflakes on their tongues. Full body shots work best.
Cut around the silhouette of your little one, and then take your cutout to a local Kinkos/FedEx or someplace that has a self-service lamination machine and run the photo through it, making sure to leave a wide border around each cutout.
Then cut out the photo again, making sure to leave enough lamination around all edges of the photo so that the lamination seal remains unbroken. Now you’re ready to start making your DIY snow globe!
Materials: glass jars with tight-fitting lids, glitter (white or iridescent), water, glycerin or clear school glue (to make the glitter fall more slowly), hot glue, plastic trees or other embellishments, spray paint
First of all, let me admit my rookie mistake. I originally purchased mason jars with removable canning lid inserts, but I quickly discovered that they wouldn’t work so well. So in a pinch, I grabbed a few glass jars from my pantry (olives, pasta sauce, coconut oil, etc.), and I spray painted the lids in different colors to cover the words and logos.
After the spray paint was dry, I flipped over the lids and started hot gluing the photos of the kids to them. If your jar is large enough, you can also add embellishments to the lid behind the photo of your child. My kids thought it would be fun to use palm trees in some of ours because we do live in SoCal, after all.
Your kids can then help you to fill the jars with water and glycerin or clear glue, as well as by adding the glitter!
The end result is really cute! Our snow globes feature my kids wearing their winter snow gear and standing in front of palm trees while it snows. Kind of perfect, don’t you think?
Check out Our Best Bites for more tips and ideas for this cool craft.
