Explore the gorgeous process art technique of salt, glue and watercolor painting to make beautiful snowflake art.
Salt and glue snowflakes
This snowflake art project combines watercolour paint with salt and glue. Watch the colour ‘jump’ along your snowflakes!
:: snowflake guide from the Ice and Snow Unit or white card and pencil or marker pen to draw your own
:: PVA white craft glue in a squeezy bottle
:: salt
:: watercolour paint
:: paint brush or pipette
Begin with simple drawings of snowflakes on card.
You can use the snowflake printable from the Ice and Snow Unit or you might like to draw your own.
Carefully trace over the snowflake outline using a squeezy bottle of white glue.
Then sprinkle a layer of salt over the top of your glue snowflake
Completely cover the snowflake with salt, then gently shake off the excess salt that isn’t stuck to the glue to reveal a salt snowflake.
Apply watercolour paints on top of your salt snowflake.
Use a concentrated / strong watercolour, with a good amount of paint and just a little amount of water.
Use a paint brush or a pipette to gently drop a little paint on to the salt of your snowflake. Watch how the salt absorbs the paint and it seems to jump along the line of your snowflake.
Keep carefully applying paint, little by little, until you have coloured your whole snowflake.
You can vary the colour paint you use and make more snowflakes of different designs.
How to download this printable
The snowflake guide sheets are included in our Ice and Snow Unit.
Everything you need for a winter unit, all in one place.
Click here to get your copy of the complete Ice and Snow Unit.
:: over 80 pages of lessons, activities, and printables
:: a complete unit of Ice, Snow, Arctic, Antarctic, Polar Bear and Penguin-themed science, math, literacy, arts and crafts, sensory, food and play
:: materials lists and bonus printables make it so easy!
:: everything planned for you, so you can enjoy it as much as your children do
:: created with children aged 4 to 8 in mind
Save time and teach better with NurtureStore’s resources!
If I put wax paper between the glue and the paper cut out could I remove them? Not sure if you tried just asking so my students can hang them up?
Hi Heather. I’ve made them using just glue (no salt) on plastic sheets, and they pulled off and could be used as a window cling. I wonder if the added salt might make them heavy, and I don’t think they’d be rigid enough to hang on their own – from a sting – but they might work as window clings. Let me know how they turn out, if you try it!
All of my snowflakes are falling apart after they dry. Did you have this problem?
Hi Erin. No, we did not have this problem. We kept the paper flat/horizontal and enjoyed the process of making the snowflakes. Are you perhaps trying to hang the printables vertically on a wall? To do that, maybe you need to use more glue and less salt, so you don’t have gravity working against you too much?
I’ve had the same problem but I fixed it by spraying it with a clear coat of spray paint. It some times needs a couple coats but this will firm them up enough to hang as long as they aren’t bothered too much.
Has anyone tried putting the snowflake pattern on a paperplate and then proceed with the glue and salt? Would they hang then?