Polymer Clay Snowman Ornaments

We love the book Snowmen at Christmas, which we read yesterday as the first book in this year’s picture book advent calendar. We decided it would be fun to make some polymer clay snowman ornaments inspired by the book! We pulled out the book and the kids got to work.

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Polymer Clay Snowman Ornaments

Materials

• Polymer clay
• Acrylic roller (makes the clay much easier to work with)
• Sculpting tools
• Glaze (optional, but makes the final product more durable in addition to providing a nice finish)
• Something to use to hang your ornament. I just discovered screw eyes pin findings, which would be ideal. We used the eyes from a package of hooks and eyes (nice and white); jump lock rings or earring hooks would also work. 

Polymer clay is a lot of fun to work with! You can also do this activity with Crayola’s model magic, which I recommend for younger kids and especially if you want to make larger ornaments (polymer clay gets heavy quickly; model magic is very light weight).

My kids LOVE polymer clay and they are big fans of this book, so they were super excited about this activity! We set the book and supplies out on the table and they got to work.

I loved watching my kids create all sorts of tiny details on their snowmen! Nine-year-old Emma spent a lot of time making striped scarves and tiny holly decorations for her snowmen’s hats.

Six-year-old Lily enjoyed using the tools to add different textures to her snowmen’s hats. Here are final products from each child, going from top to bottom, left to right:

• Three-year-old Anna’s snowman, wearing gold earrings.
• Snowman versions of me and Mike made by seven-year-old Johnny. He said that we were right next to each other because, “I think moms and dads are very special people.”
• Snowman versions of me and Anna made by nine-year-old Emma.
• A snowboarding snowman made by Johnny.
• Snowman versions of Johnny, Lily, and Anna made by six-year-old Lily. She added an Emma snowman after it got too dark out to take photos.

I had planned to turn all of these snowmen into tree ornaments, but the kids decided to keep most of them as figurines to play with. Johnny let me hang up the ornament of me and Mike:

Polymer clay snowman ornaments make wonderful gifts that kids can make to give to others, and these ornaments made for a wonderful afternoon of siblings crafting together. I’m sure we will be making more, possibly inspired by  another picture book from our picture book advent calendar.

Looking for more fun ornaments to make with your kids? Today’s post is part of a series hosted by my friend Melissa! Click on the image below to find more fun Christmas tree ornaments inspired by wonderful children’s picture books! Today you can find homemade cinnamon Christmas ornaments at A Little Pinch of Perfect, a tomten garland at What Do We Do All Day?, a Norman the slug ornament at Adventures of Adam, easy fabric ornaments at One Time Through, button star Christmas ornaments at Buggy and Buddy, mitten ornaments at Kitchen Floor Crafts, Christmas star ornaments at Montessori Nature, a DIY wood slice ornament from The Life of Jennifer Dawn, and a washi tape mason jar lid ornament at Happy Brown House.

Do you have a favorite ornament that we should make or a picture book that we should add to our reading list?