How to Make A Winter Decoration Using Footprint Snowmen

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We are experiencing extremely cold temperatures here in the Lehigh Valley, which means we are staying indoors.  Being inside means I am looking for creative, fun and new ways to engage my 14 month old daughter during the day.  Hand and footprint art is one of those activities!  Footprint art is a fun, inexpensive and easy activity to complete with your child.

Here’s a great description of what your infant/toddler learns during footprint painting from A Place of Our Own:

Footprint Painting is a wonderful opportunity for infants to learn. Babies learn cause and effect when they see that their feet are making prints on the paper. They learn tactile and sensory skills from touching the paint and feeling how paint feels on their skin and in between their toes. They also develop language, because adults are guiding the infants at all times and engaging them throughout the activity. Words such as wet, squishy, cold, gooey can help babies learn language and connect them to what they are experiencing.

My daughter is 14 months old and she enjoys having her foot painted.  She actually giggles when I brush the paint on her foot 🙂

Now that Christmas is behind us, I am updating my house decorations to reflect winter.  I love snowmen and many of the figurines and decorations I display for Christmas are more wintry than Christmas.  We have a 4 feet tall Christmas tree on the second floor landing of our home that is decorated in snowmen ornaments.  Keeping my decorations more wintry than Christmas allows me to keep them displayed through the season.  One of my favorite places to decorate in my home is our fireplace mantel.  The fireplace is a focal point in our living room and I enjoy seeing it decorated for each season.  That’s why I decided to create a garland decoration out of the footprint snowmen.

The elementary teacher in me loves doing arts and crafts projects so making this winter decoration by transforming my daughter’s footprints into snowmen was right up my alley.

Materials: Everything You Need to Make A Winter Decoration With Footprint Snowmen

All of the materials used to complete this craft project were in my home already.  I used light blue construction paper as the background for the footprint snowmen because it reminds me of winter.  In order to preserve the footprint snowmen and make them sturdier, I laminated each one.

In addition to the materials shown above, you will need a pair of scissors, a piece of card board or something solid to place behind the paper, a glue stick, a single hole punch and a piece of yarn for stringing the finished footprint snowmen.

How to Make Footprint Snowmen

1. Take two pieces of light blue paper (or the color of your choice) and cut each piece into thirds.  I actually started with three pieces of paper, but some of Jemma’s footprints did not come out well so I chose the six best.
2. Use a foam brush to paint your child’s foot with white finger paint.  I chose to use my daughter’s right foot, for no particular reason.  I also used the same foot for all of the footprints because there will only be one messy foot to clean off.  I strapped my daughter into her portable booster seat, which is attached to one of our chairs at the craft/project/game table in our basement.  I also kept a pack of baby wipes and paper towels close by in case of a mess.  Use a liberal amount of paint so the footprint comes out on the paper.
3. Place a piece of the light blue paper on top of the cardboard and press your child’s foot onto the paper with the toes closest to the edge of the paper and space above the heel.  The heel will be the top of the snowman so you need room to glue the hat.
4. Use the foam brush to paint your child’s foot, again, with the white finger paint.
5. Press your child’s foot onto another piece of paper with the toes closest to the edge and space above the heel.
6. Repeat steps 2-5 until each piece of paper has a footprint on it.
7. Place the pieces of paper in a safe place to dry.  I actually laid them on a wire shelf that is temporarily in our basement.  This shelf used to hold our shoes until we came up with a different system.  Now, it works well for storing craft supplies and laying out wet footprints to dry 🙂  
8. Once the footprints are dry, which only took a couple of hours, they are ready to transform into snowmen.  I did the footprints in the morning and by the afternoon (around 2:30-3:00), they were dry.
9. Cut hats out of a piece of black construction paper.  I drew a template and traced that to make sure the hats were all the same.  However, you could even draw the hat onto each snowman using markers and crayons.  I chose to make a traditional black top hat for each snowman, but you can draw different hats.  It is completely up to you!
10. Glue a hat onto each snowman.  I chose to place the hats differently on each snowman.  Some of the snowmen are wearing their hats on the left side of their head; some are wearing their hats on the right side of their head; and some are wearing their hats in the middle of their head.
11. Use a black marker to draw two eyes, a mouth and three buttons on each snowman.  Use an orange marker to draw a carrot nose (a long triangle pointing to one side).  Use the color(s) of your choice to draw a scarf on each snowman.  Use a brown marker to draw two arms on each snowman.
12. Lay out all six of your snowmen in the order you would like them to be displayed.  Write “Let” on the first snowman, “It” on the second, and “Snow” on the third.  Repeat this on the next three snowmen.
13. Create a winter scene on each piece of paper by drawing snow on the bottom and adding snowflakes throughout.  My snowflakes are simply asterisks. 
14. Laminate your footprint snowmen.  I love using my laminator to preserve pictures, artwork, game pieces, cards, etc.  This tool came in handy a lot when I was in the classroom!  Cut out the footprint snowmen so you have six separate snowmen.
15. Use the single hole punch to punch two holes, about 3/4-1 inch apart at the top of each footprint snowman.  Take a piece of yarn and string it through the holes.  Hang your winter decoration under your mantel using the 3M Command Ceiling Hooks or in another location of your choice in your home.  I had these little mittens and thought they complemented the footprint snowmen perfectly and added an extra touch to the footprint snowmen display 🙂

There you have it!  A creative, fun, inexpensive, and easy way to add a special touch to your home this winter.  Seeing these snowmen hanging on our fireplace brings a smile to my face 🙂 The possibilities of footprint art are endless.  Let me know about any footprint art you’ve created!  I’d love to hear about your project in the comments below.  Stay warm, my friends and….

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

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