Salt Paint Snowmen

I like salt paint.  When it dries, the final project looks so unique and you just have to touch it.  Last Easter, we made salt paint marshmallow chicks (click on the link to check them out!) and they looked just like marshmallow Peeps!

While cleaning under my kitchen sink, I found the bottle of liquid laundry starch that has been sitting there for quite some time and figured it was time to use some of it.  I decided to make salt paint.  This is the recipe:

• 1/4 cup liquid laundry starch
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 TBSP paint (we used white paint this time to look like snow)
• 1 cup salt

I mixed all of the ingredients in a foil pie pan and C and R got to work making snowy scenes.  When the salt paint dried, C and R used markers to add details to their snowmen.

It is really hard to capture the texture in photographs.  This is C's salt paint snowman:

Here is R's salt paint snowman:

We followed this with a snowy story time.  We began by reading Snowmen All Year by Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner.

Just like the other snowman books by these authors (Snowmen At Night and Snowmen at Christmas), this book is fun to read and the illustrations are perfectly sweet.  We love to find the hidden pictures on each page too!  The concept behind this book is unique - imagine your snowman friend could last all year, think of all the things you could do together.  C and R like the idea of trick or treating with a snowman and taking a snowman to the beach in the summer!  I am particularly fond of the snowman camping under the starry skies. 

Our second snowman book of the night was Snow Party by Harriet Ziefert.  On the first day of winter, snow men, snow women, and snow children come out for a special party.  There is dancing, singing, and seasonal fun.  The illustrations are very charming!  I like the simple text too.

Any book that has snowmen coming to life makes my children very happy!

I am linking this to stArt, Kids Get Crafty, and Read, Explore, Learn.  Visit all three sites for more book inspired projects!