The holiday season is the perfect time to cuddle up next to the fire with a cup of cocoa and craft the night away. Pinterest offers craft suggestions for every level and age for every holiday of the year. But there’s something special about snowy wreaths, Christmas trees, snowflakes, and cuddly projects that ushers in the holiday season. I tested five crafts from both friend referrals and Pinterest to help you find things to make that crafting this winter easy and fun.

Paint Swatch Christmas Trees

This craft is an easy way to make a tree either kids or adults to decorate. They are both cute for hanging on the refrigerator and for making a wall decoration for an artsy friend.

Level: Easy

What you’ll need: green and brown paper paint swatches from the home improvement or paint store, markers, washi tape, any other decorating materials, scissors.

How to make it: Cut triangles or Christmas tree shapes out of the green paint samples. Glue or tape a brown rectangle to the bottom to make the trunk. Decorate as you wish.

You can add a star to the top or some garland and ornaments around the tree.  The possibilities are really endless with your decorating skills on this one. Older kids might want to cut their own tree out of the paint swatches. It might be better with younger kids to cut the tree out for them, but give them reign over decorating.

Mason Jar Snow Globe

Everywhere you look these days, Mason jars are being used in crafts from table decorations to wedding décor. You can use Mason jars for so many different winter crafts, but making a whimsical snow globe is my favorite.

Level: Easy

What you’ll need: Mason jar with a mouth wide enough for your inside decorations, decorations for the inside (I used a tiny craft tree and a little deer), hot glue, fake snow.

How to make it: Glue the two lid pieces together. Glue your decorations to the lid to make your scene. I put my deer in front of the tree like it was out in nature. Put the fake snow in the jar. Once the glue is dry, screw the lid on and turn it upside down.

Make sure to not use too much snow. You don’t want to cover your winter wonderland scene, but rather give it a light dusting of “snow”. You can really put anything that fits inside your snow globe for this project. Some examples of this project have a small car with a tree “tied” to the top of it like someone has just fresh picked their Christmas tree. This craft give you the freedom to explore the craft store, the toy section or even just around your house to find the perfect items to include in your snowy scene.

Footprint Snowmen

Holiday crafts that show how your little ones have grown over the years are a great to involve your children in holiday crafting. In this, you can show how small a child’s feet were years from now by included their footprints.

Level: Medium

What you’ll need: Small canvas, background paint color, white paint, paint brush, washi tape, any other decorating materials

How to make it: Paint the canvas the color you want. Allow to dry. Paint your child’s feet white and press to the canvas. When dry, add a face to the snowman. You can decorate and dress him as you wish.

The decorations on the snowmen can be done either by an adult or a child, depending on the look you want. Because I used the footprints of a toddler, it was not something I thought he’d be able to decorate. Instead, I let dry and mad the snowmen’s face and clothing. It is relatively easy to do, but does prove to be a bit challenging wrangling the feet of a child. To add even more to this, you could decorate the canvas with trees or other things you might find in the winter near snowmen.

Snowflake Window Clings

Add some pizzazz to your windows and make snowflake clings for your windows. You can look outside and see snow falling…even when you’re inside on a possibly 80 degree Texas day.

Level: Medium

What you’ll need: Parchment paper or plastic sandwich bags, puffy paint or hot glue, snowflake print offs

How to make it: Find snowflake designs you like online and print them out (the thicker the lines, the better). Put the print out under the parchment paper or plastic bag. [Note: I did not use a plastic bag with a hot glue gun. You will probably want to use parchment paper with this so as to not burn the plastic.] Trace the snowflake design with the paint or glue. Allow to dry. Peel off the paper or bag and stick to the window!

This craft is slightly time consuming to make because of the accuracy of tracing the snowflake. If you have someone slightly younger who wants to try this, you can find a snowflake with less lines and detail. I did have some trouble peeling the snowflake off the paper so keep patient with it. Also, if you have a hard time adhering it to a window, you can add a couple drops of hot glue on corners to make them stickier.

Winter Hat Ornaments

These little winter beanies are cute as present toppers, to string and hang as ornaments, or to set on a ledge for a decoration.

Level: Medium

What you’ll need: Used toilet paper or paper towel rolls, yarn, scissors, ruler, hot glue gun, small pompoms.

How to make it: Cut pieces of the toilet paper/paper towel rolls in one inch tubes. Cut your yarn in 14 inch pieces. You can use any color yarn you wish, but I advise a yarn that is not too thick and fluffy. Fold a piece of yard in half and place inside the tube. Pull the ends through the loop and tighten onto the tube. Continue until you have covered the tube all the way around. The pieces of yarn should be fairly close together. Gather the ends of the yarn and tie a piece of yarn near the end of the gathered pieces. Push the yarn inside the tube so it flips it into a hat. Adhere a pompom to the top of the hat with hot glue.

This craft is time consuming in the prep and looping the yarn, but would be a great craft for an older child or a teenager. You can experiment with different colors and texture of yarn to achieve different looks. Once you have the basics down, it’s very easy to continue making them if you want to make several for one tree or a variety to give as gifts.