Make some herb'n snowfolks! We got out the jars of our favorite holiday spices, some old socks and rubberbands, and made a giant mess. Easy enough for a two and four year old with just a wee bit of help from mama, this craft could take 15 minutes or a few hours depending on enthusiasm. We hope you enjoy and would love to see yours if you try em out.
First gather your snowfolk supplies. For the bodies you'll need white tube socks or tights, dried beans or rice or some other sturdy filler, rubber bands, and herbs and spices.
For the hats you'll need, paint, something to paint with and a small square of fabric.
Next create your spice blend and set aside. We mixed and mashed ours up in a mortar and pestle, but you can just mix em in a bowl or a spice grinder if you like.
Next roll up your sock to the toe and fill the beans.
Then add your spices.
Next close bottom "snowball" with a rubber band.
Repeat above steps two more times.
Cut extra sock material, but leave enough to make the top part of the top hat.
Now decorate your snowfolks. We used orange peels, star anise, cinnamon sticks, cardamom, allspice, juniper berries and black pepper corns, but use whatever you have on hand. Or if you're two and your getting molars, have a munch on a cinnamon stick. We've had quite the adventure with teething pain, but this remains one of our favorite ways to soothe. Note to the Mamas: while I've used this pain relieving remedy with both my kiddos with no problems, cinnamon sticks can break into chokable bits, so do keep an eye on them. We try to only keep the largest heartiest ones for sucking. And the cinnamon can dry out and burn the lips some, but you have a good salve in your apothecary anyway for that right? ;)
Finally the hats. I'm not so creative in this department, so you might have a better option like maybe making hats from paper or fabric, but we ended up using a circle of fabric and some paint. We cut a circle in the fabric and thread it through the sock extras then just used black paint (we had acrylic, but im sure craft paint will do) to paint it together.
The mess is mighty with the littles, but oh so very much fun, it kept them distracted for hours. And I'm sure there's some sensory/tactile edumacation something or other going on too. The smell is lovely if they sit on a shelf. But of course my girls have been playing with them all day so our house smells extra delicious. Sevilla promptly informed me we need to make another since we are four in our family. Perhaps, another day.....
