Step by Step

1. Place a large sheet of wax paper or parchment paper on your work surface.

2. Squeeze the glue onto the paper in the shape of a snowflake. If kids want to make other shapes, including abstract shapes as my son did, let them! This should be a fun, creative project for kids, not a quest for perfection.

3. If desired, sprinkle wet glue with glitter.

4. Allow to dry. Drying time will depend on how thick the glue is. I recommend allowing the DIY clings to dry overnight.

5. Once the clings are dry, peel off the paper and press them onto clean glass. In order to prepare the glass for the best possible adhesion, spray with a solution of vinegar and water and wipe dry.

The nice thing about window clings made with glue is that you can reposition them again and again. Be aware, however, if the window glass is not clean, re-adhesion will be negatively affected.

Tips

We found plain white glue window clings to be satisfactory, but in subsequent years we tried new techniques that produced slightly better results. So if you don't have the success you want with white glue try these tips:

• Use puffy fabric paint instead of glue. This produced a very good, long lasting DIY window cling.
• Apply a solution of water and dish soap to the glass before applying the window clings.
• Moisten the back of each window cling with water before applying to glass.
• Instead of squeezing out plain glue, pour glue into a paper cup, add a few drops of dish soap, mix. Brush the glue mixture onto your paper to make designs You will want to paint the designs thickly.

More DIY Snowflake Decorations

Don't limit your winter decor to glue-made window clings! Here are some more EASY ideas!

Cut snowflakes from cellophane and adhere to windows with a solution of dish soap and water. Follow our easy snowflake "stained glass" instructions here.

Every year I go nuts making paper snowflakes and use them for a variety of purposes, like our DIY wall-papered Christmas tree and paper snowflake wreath. Read about other ways to incorporate paper snowflakes into your winter crafting fun.

If you have a package of Wikki Stix, they make great rainbow snowflakes for the window! Take a look at how my kids fashioned them:

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The kids and I love to decorate our windows. Cheerfully decorated windows always brighten up our day. Although we love to paint directly to the glass, like we did with this Mondrian window art, sometimes you want something that you can easily remove like this clever abstract faux stained glass.

Note: this post contains affiliate links that may earn commission.

Instructions

This abstract stained glass is so easy to make, even for preschoolers! A lot of kids' stained glass projects use tissue paper and sticky paper, but because we use alternative materials, our faux stained glass is much clearer and translucent! The sunlight glows as it passes through!

What you need:

• Plastic sheet protectors like these. Preferably clear finish.
• Colored cellophane.
• Clear tape
• Scissors

Preparation:

Cut the side and bottom of the sheet protector so that it folds open. Cut cellophane into abstract shapes. Alternatively, depending on the age and focus level of your kids, children can cut the cellophane into shapes.

Cellophane escapes with the slightest breeze, so I put all the shapes in a container on the table.

Make the faux stained glass:

Kids choose and place a variety of abstract cellophane shapes on the plastic. When they are content with their design, close the protector and tape shut at the side and bottom edges.

If the child placed cellophane on both sides, when the protector is shut, they will notice some color mixing!

Once my son was done we hung his abstract design up in the window. It was pretty challenging to get a photo without the fire escape or child safety bars in the background, but you can see how wonderfully the light comes through!

MORE WINDOW ART:

• Painted window art
• Mondrian window art
• Cellophane snowflake stained glass window

The post Easy Abstract Faux Stained Glass Art Project for Kids appeared first on What Do We Do All Day.

One of the byproducts of this faux stained glass technique is that the soapy water leaves a faux frost on the window, but that is perfect for a snowflake and winter themed window! Many people use tissue paper for kids stained glass projects, but I prefer cellophane because of the shiny quality, which is much more like real stained glass! Cellophane is also much less likely to tear than tissue paper, so it's easier and less frustrating for little hands to apply. I also love that you don't need to use sticky paper (which is made out of yucky vinyl). (Note: affiliate links included below)

I've given the how-to in the other faux stained glass window posts, but here it is again.

What you need:

• Paintbrush. In the past we've used foam rollers, but after 10 years, they finally gave up the ghost.
• Cellophane. We've always used these cello sheets.
• Dish soap
• Water
• A window
• Towels for clean up

Instructions:

• Cut snowflakes. This is the hardest part because cellophane can be tricky for little hands to cut. In our previous window art projects, I've done all the cutting myself. It is easier to cut the folded layers of the snowflake pattern, however. Here's where I confess: I love cutting snowflakes. I made all these myself, because my kids just weren't interested the day I was doing it and I never force them to do crafts. I also made them last year, but never got around to applying them to the window until this year! (We move slowly around here.) If you need help cutting snowflakes, watch my handy dandy how to cut a paper snowflake video.

• Apply a mixture of 2 parts dish soap to 1 part water to the window. (You need this concentration, a lesser concentration won't have any staying power, believe me.)
• Stick cellophane snowflakes (or whatever shapes you want) to the window. I had also cut some snowflakes from the clear sheets, thinking it might create a sort of ethereal snowflake effect, but no. They didn't even show up, so stick with the colored sheets.

Step back and enjoy your beautiful snowflake stained glass window art! It's almost as good as real snow.

TIP: Snowflakes tear more easily than other shapes (but still not as much as tissue paper!) so less intricate snowflakes are better. If your kids are doing the cutting, that shouldn't be a problem. You can simply repair any tears, by closing the gap when you apply them to the window.

TIP: The cellophane will stay up until you are ready to take it down, in which case a little water will do the trick.

MORE: See 14 kids stained glass window projects; After your window is finished you will want to read picture books about snow!

BONUS: Got tons of paper snowflakes? Find out what to with paper snowflakes when you have more than you can handle.

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The biggest benefit of our window art is that it distracts me from staring at our fire escape. We may not have a gorgeous view but that's all the more motivation to brighten things up with a bit of kid made art.

Classic window crafts usually involves tissue on sticky paper (aka "Contact Paper"). I have eliminated this stuff from my life because it is made out of vinyl, which is extremely harmful to the environment and also to people who come in contact with the chemicals during manufacturing and disposal. I also don't think it's wise for children to play with it. I'm not environmentally perfect, but I do make adjustments as I learn new things.

I encourage you to create window art and sun catchers without sticky paper and I hope these ideas with inspire you!

Stained Glass Window Projects We've Done

Mondrian stained glass painting on the window.

Cellophane faux stained glass using dish soap. We've done autumn leaves stained glass, freestyle colored shapes and rainbow (a guest post over at Hands on :: as We Grow).

Quick and easy stained glass using page protectors. This is fun if you already have page protectors. I had some left over. I don't want to encourage you to buy them just for this. Some of them are made out of vinyl or similar plastics.

Free painting on the window using paint or window markers.

It's not stained glass, but our homemade rainbow prism mobile adds rainbow joy every afternoon.

Stained Glass Window Projects from Others

Ideas from other crafty families I have my eye on:

• Stained glass using India Ink from Babble Dabble Do
• Hearts with black glue from Mess for Less
• See through paintings using paint and tissue from Picklebums. She uses contact paper, but you could do this directly on the window.
• Designs with Post-Its from Mum in the Mad House
• Life sized collage people from 4 Crazy Kings
• Paintings on waxed paper from Happy Hooligans
• Tissue paper window from Dilly-Dali Art
• Window art made from gelatin (Seriously!) from Dilly-Dali Art
• Awesome (but probably too involved for me - ha!) Frank Lloyd Wright bubble window from Harmony Art Mom. It uses contact paper, but it's too cool not to share.

What do you think? Do you and your kids decorate the window? Have you ever tried a faux stained glass project? Would you be willing to give up Contact Paper?

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I love the way our Mondrian window art turned out and the activity kept the kids busy indoors after school on a rainy afternoon (bonus!). If you combine the art session with a little reading (see book at the end of this post) you can have a even have a mini Mondrian art lesson!

How to create Mondrian Window Art

We've made stained glass with cellophane before, but this time we used paint. Not to worry, it washes right off.

What you need:

• Washable tempera paint in red, blue, yellow, black and white (optional)*
• Paint brushes and trays or cups for the paint.
• Painters tape.

While the kids were at school I created the Mondrian style grid with painters tape. There's no reason why kids can't do this part themselves, but with my boys it always helps get them in a creative mood if I have everything all ready to go and offer a bit of an appetizer, so to speak. Otherwise, they just devolve into wrestling on the bed.

Mondrian's Neo-Plastic paintings used white, black and the three primary colors yellow, blue and red. We decided to forgo white and instead allow the transparency of the glass to play a role.

To begin, we put yellow, red and blue in dishes. In order to avoid confusion and "mess ups", we designated which areas would get which colors by dabbing a colored dot in the middle of each rectangle. That way the boys (and especially my 5 year old) would stay on track.

There's something a bit subversive about being allowed to paint directly on the windows, so of course they got really into it. They loved painting the shapes.

I recommend peeling the tape off before the paint completely dries. It's not essential, but sometimes the tape pulls of the paint around its edges after it has hardened. After you peel off the tape you want to paint in the black lines.

I actually painted on the black lines myself. To be honest, the boys had moved on to other things (wrestling, mostly) and I couldn't get them back into painting. No doubt kids with longer attention spans can see the project through. I especially like how the frame of the window is the same width as the black lines. That was purely by accident.

We all loved how it turned out, despite the blobs in some of the rectangles. I had to saturate this photo to get it to reflect the actual color. I wish I was a better photographer. (In other words, my walls are not actually that strong green color.) We haven't washed it off yet, but it washes off quite easily with soapy water. Long time readers of this blog (yay for you!) may remember way back when when I encouraged window washing with just this sort of window painting project.

*We had two different brands of tempera paint: Colorations from Discount School Supply and Sargent Art. Colorations stuck to the window much longer. The Sargent Art (which was actually more expensive) started to flake off!

I'm excited to turn our window into a canvas for masterpieces by other great artists! Who should we do next?

More Mondrian for Kids resources:

Coppernickel Goes Mondrian. This underlying theme of the book about how Mondrian transformed a way of seeing things and a modern world is rather sophisticated. The text itself I found a little confusing and it could use some editing. However, pick it up at the library, because the illustrations are wonderful. The animals journey through the city and as they do, the landscape changes, just as Mondrian's own art underwent its own transformation.

Websites:

• Mondrian for Kids at Pragmatic Mom
• Brief recap of Mondrian's life and style at Art Smarts 4 Kids
• 6 Mondrian pieces at the Tate show the transformation of his style.

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A lot of window art projects for kids use sticky paper, I love that this one doesn't because sticky vinyl paper is very bad for the environment. Instead, the boys used paint brushes and a sponge roller to apply a solution of dish soap and water and stuck the cellophane shapes right on the glass.

Since floppy cellophane is frustrating for the boys to cut, I cut out colorful fall leaves and shapes ahead of time and the boys had a great time placing them to the window.

Our last window art project had some serious staying power. It was up for months! The colors retained their vibrancy for a long time I only removed it because the colors did fade a bit after a few months (the window gets full afternoon sun), but only one or two bits of cellophane ever fell off.

This time the leaves fell off as soon as they dried! I was mortified that maybe this had happened to others who tried the project so I went back and read the instructions.

MORE: 65 Fun Family Fall Activities

Well. Following the instructions is always a good idea. I had barely used any dish soap and what you need is a solution of ⅔ dish soap to ⅓ water. Yup. You need that strong concentration to work. It won't work with just a squirt of soap in a bucket of water.

Sadly, by this time the boys had moved on to something else, so I reapplied all the leaves. (I found it rather relaxing...) They are still up! I love the way the leaves camouflage our less-than-perfect view.

As I've said before: I fail so you can learn. Always follow the instructions. 😉

I'm already thinking of fun ways we can adapt this project for the dreary days of winter!

The post Fall Crafts for Kids: Cellophane Stained Glass appeared first on What Do We Do All Day.

Easy Stained Glass Art with Cellophane

I have been wanting to make this colorful faux kids' stained glass window art project using cellophane shapes with the kids ever since I saw it on Matzo Ball Soup. Isn't it gorgeous? It's a variation on another cellophane art activity we did (that one used page protectors!) and terrific for covering up a less-than perfect view! (Note: affiliate links included for products, below)

The boys had so much fun. All you need is:

• Cellophane  cut into a variety of shapes (you could easily customize this for any theme, like snowflakes for winter or hearts for Valentine's)
• solution of ⅔ water and ⅓ dish soap
• paint brush or roller

To begin, Kiddo used a sponge roller to apply the soapy mixture to the window. I think this was just as much for him as adding the shapes.

Stick the shapes on however you want. Overlap, create scenes or just engage in free art, like the boys did.

If the soap dries, just add more. You can also paint or roll over any cellophane corners that may be poking up.

By the way, those bars are child-safety bars required by the city, not prison bars! If you want to take window decorating one step further,  kids can paint directly on the window with washable paint and even wash the windows afterward!

Will you be trying this project?

*Note: many of you know that I have been trying to reduce the amount of plastics that we use. Cellophane is made out of plant material, although the process of making it is hardly environmentally friendly (sadly this is true for many art materials). We made this project using Hygloss Cello Sheets.

This post contains and affiliate link.

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It makes a nice change of pace from paper. Plus the kids feel like maybe they are doing something a bit unorthodox. They love that!  I mixed a small amount of dishwasher liquid in tempera paint and let Kiddo loose on the windows.

I used some painter's tape to create a frame border for him to work in and around. The effect was nice when I peeled it off. You could even use the tape to create a Mondrian window!

I love doing this when it is the weather is less than perfect.  What a nice way to experience stormy, tempestuous weather -- making art. You could also use the weather to make this rain painting art project!

Also, it's good for disguising dirty windows.

Not that I have any of those. (he he he)

A few days later you can turn this into a window washing project or create a stained glass window using cellophane!

For more rainy day ideas visit our Giant List of Indoor Activities for Kids.

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