Eco-Friendly Winter Crafts to Try at Home

Winter is upon us, making it the perfect time of the year to bust out our all time favorite winter crafts! Whether you are making something yourself, a gift for someone else, or winter decorations, there is a winter craft out there for everyone!

Feel free to use any craft supplies laying around your home to spice up your crafts and don’t be afraid to be creative! Even if you don’t have many craft supplies available in your home, there are some eco-friendly craft ideas that can be made with materials that you may have in or around your home, like this Christmas tree stick ornament for instance. All it took was ribbon, a stick, and some string! How creative is that?

Mason Jar Snow Globes are fun to make during any season! Anything that can fit in a mason jar, can become your very own snow globe! This holiday season instead of buying a snow globe, let’s make our own!

You will need:

Mason Jar
Tiny tree or pine needle
Eco-friendly glitter alternatives
Glycerine or Clear Vegetable oil
Water
Superglue

All you need to do is glue the small tree to the lid of the jar and wait for it to dry. While you wait, think of some eco-friendly items you could use instead of glitter. Glitter is made up of microplastics and usually ends up in our local lakes and rivers; there are so many other things like flower seeds, dyed rice, or bits of leaves that we could use instead to add a little sparkle!

Next, fill the jar with water, add some glitter substitutes, and glycerine. Close tightly, shake, and there you have it. Your own winter wonderland in a jar!

Sock snowmen are another fun and easy craft that can turn out so many different ways! If you have an old pair of long socks lying around, try this out!

You will need:

A Long Sock
Scissors
Buttons, Beads, & Fabric
Glue
Hair Tie (OR) Rubber Band
Dry Rice or Beans (to fill the snowman)

First, cut off the top of the stock from the foot and turn it inside out. Attach a rubber band tightly to the top and then turn the sock right side out again.

Fill the sock with rice. Rubber band the top of the sock closed and put another rubber band ¾ of the way to the top for the head of your snowman.

Now, decorate by tying a scarf around your snowman’s neck and add some eyes, a nose and buttons. You can even use the toe of your cut socks to make a hat for your snowman.

Lastly, you can glue on your buttons and add twine, bows, ribbons, or anything else you have lying around the house. It would be super simple to create a whole family of snowmen!

Pinecone Crafts

Pinecones are always fun to play with and they can be turned into SO many different things as well! Have you ever thought about how many ways you could use a pinecone for crafts? Just off the top of my head, I know of several really fun pinecone crafts!

We all know that pinecones come from trees, but we can give them a craft version of the tree they would become by turning our pine cones into Christmas trees. For this craft you will need:

Pinecones
Green Paint
Tacky Glue
Decorative sprinkles
Plaster
Beads, Old Necklaces, or pom-poms (ornaments)

First paint the pinecones green. Then, while the paint is still wet, sprinkle on something eco-friendly like sugar, sprinkles, or flower seeds. This part is messy so you can lay down a tablecloth or do this craft outside!

Then mixed up a bucket of plaster of Paris and plopped a glob for each tree to stick in the "snow". You can also glue your pinecones on to cardboard, but plaster is cheap and easy to use.

Lastly, decorate your pine cone trees with various things you have lying around the house like old necklaces, beads, small toys, or pom-poms!

My favorite craft that you can make with pinecones is a good old fashioned Pine Cone Ornament!

They came from trees and now we can put them on our trees as decorations! All you will need is string, glue, pom-pom balls and of course a pinecone that you found.

You can be creative with these as well and add anything else you may have lying around the house.

Check out this link to see all of the things you can make out of pinecones this holiday season! https://www.craftymorning.com/pine-cone-crafts-kids-make/

More Crafts To Love!

There are so many other crafts that you can get into this holiday season. They do not all have to be eco-friendly, but these ideas can still be made using mostly things you’ll have lying around your house!

When I was a child, we made Salt Dough Handprints that I still have to this day.

To make these you will need:

Flour (4 Cups)
Salt (1 Cup)
Warm Water (1.5 Cups)
Straw (to make a hole)
Twine (for hanging)
Colored paint
Googly Eyes and Pom-Poms
Sharpie
Tacky Glue
Sealer (mod podge).

You can make your salt dough by mixing together flour, salt, and warm water for about 5 minutes, until it forms a dough! NOTE: If it feels too dry add a drop of water. If it feels too sticky add a dash of flour.

Roll out the dough until it is about ½ inch thick and press your hand into it. Then have an adult cut out the handprint. Press the straw through the top of the middle finger to create a hole. You can also draw little lightbulb shapes and have an adult cut those out as well.

Then you will bake your salt dough handprint in the oven at 250 degrees for two hours and then let them dry on a cookie rack for 24 hours before you can begin decorating.

Once your handprint has dried, you can paint your handprint however you like, but reindeer are always my favorite! To make the reindeer all you need is to paint the handprint brown. Then paint the light bulbs each a different color and you can outline the light bulbs with a sharpie after they dry. Then glue on the lightbulbs and draw on light strings with a black sharpie. You can seal the ornament using mod podge if you want it to last forever! Lastly, glue on your reindeer’s googly eyes and pom pom nose!

Egg Carton Snowmen is the last craft on our favorites list. We tend to eat a lot of eggs in our home, so there are always egg cartons lying around and when I saw this craft I thought what an inventive idea! To make these you will need:

Egg Carton
White Paint & Paintbrush
Scissors
Hot Glue
2 Buttons
Orange Paper
Black Marker
Small Pom-Poms & Pipe Cleaners (Green and Red)

First cut out 3 cups from your egg carton and paint them white. To stack your cups, you’ll need to make spacers by cutting a small strip from the egg carton lid and folding the strip into a square. Glue this square to the top of one egg carton.

Then glue another egg carton on top of the one with the spacer. Create another spacer with a strip of egg carton lid and attach it to the top of the second egg cup. Then, glue your final egg cup to the top.

To make earmuffs cut a small piece of pipe cleaner and make it into a “u” shape. Then, glue it to the top of the egg cup. Next, glue two pom-poms to the ends of the pipe cleaners to make it look like ear muffs.

Draw your snowman’s carrot nose on orange paper, cut it out and glue it on. You can draw on the snowman’s eyes and mouth with a black sharpie and finally glue on the buttons!

There are so many ways to get crafty this holiday season! So round up your craft supplies and a few things from outdoors and let’s get to it!