It’s Snowing! Contact Paper Collage

Preschool Art Collage Project Snow Scene with Contact Paper

Are you looking for a fun and meaningful snowy day activity for your preschool child or student?

Make a Contact Paper Snow Scene Collage and help your child:

  • Develop fine motor skills
  • Practice cutting paper
  • Make choices about composition
  • Understand how transparency can effect a piece of art
  • Play with the sticky and rewarding qualities of contact paper

it's snowing! contact paper collage

This 2-D activity is fantastic for children of all ages, and it doesn’t require any drawing at all. You’ll see how we did this two different ways, making it suitable for children with various drawing abilities and fine motor skills.

{Bonus: Nine more contact paper project ideas at the end of this post!}

it's snowing! contact paper collage

This post may contain affiliate links.

Materials

  1. Contact Paper
  2. Scissors. Fiskars are my absolute favorite for kids. They come in blunt and pointy.
  3. Colorful Construction Paper. Pacon makes a beautiful fade- resistant paper.
  4. Glue Stick. Elmer’s dry-clear purple glue sticks are amazing because children can see where the glue goes.
  5. Markers. Crayola are washable, the colors are rich, and they last. High quality, great value.

To begin, I cut a sheet of contact paper (approximately 12″ x 12″) from a roll, peeled the backing off, and placed it sticky-side up on the table. My daughter cut shapes from the paper and stuck them to the contact paper in whatever way she wanted. Then we attached it to a window, using a long strip of contact paper to seal it in place.

Read on for more images and suggestions for a successful collage session…

it's snowing! contact paper collage

Pretty! While working on this project, N talked about making people, which led to a second project that eventually turned into a winter snow scene.

it's snowing! contact paper collage

Again, I set up her work space with a sheet of contact paper, sticky-side-up. We both cut shapes from the paper, and N put them in position where she thought they looked right. The nice thing about contact paper is that it’s tacky, but not super sticky, and pieces can be easily repositioned. We did a lot of that!

I cut a variety of geometric shapes (circles, rectangles, and triangles) and a bunch of organic shapes for her to choose from. She also placed requests: In the process of making this person, she asked for long, skinny pieces for the arms and legs. I liked that because it showed that she had ideas and could direct the outcome of her image.

it's snowing! contact paper collage

She chose to stick most of the pieces directly to the contact paper, and others were glued in layers on top of other pieces.

it's snowing! contact paper collage

Every now and then she’d lift the whole thing to see how it looked with light streaming through it.

it's snowing! contact paper collage

She started making a pattern of small circles on the top of the paper, and then decided it should be a snow storm. I got busy cutting circles, circles, and more circles until she deemed that there was enough snow! The big white pieces on the right side are part of a snow bank. Ha! She knows a lot about snow for a California kid!

it's snowing! contact paper collage

And we hung it in our sunny, warm, snow-free window when we were done.


Having a roll of contact paper in our art cabinet is a life-saver. In case you’re looking for a reason to buy your very own roll, here are nine more ideas:

  1. Contact Paper Sun Catcher: TinkerLab
  2. Sticky Autumn Collage: TinkerLab
  3. Flower Mandala: The Artful Parent
  4. Flower Art Box: The Artful Parent
  5. Fall Leaf Garland: The Chocolate Muffin Tree
  6. So Easy Kaleidoscope: The Chocolate Muffin Tree
  7. Rose Window: The Chocolate Muffin Tree
  8. Mess-Free Chanukah Pictures: Creative Jewish Mom

10 Comments

  1. Brilliant! Audrey loves art projects.

    • That’s such a fun idea, Carrie Ann. Thanks for sharing the photo of your happy, industrious kids!

  2. Love the whole scene on contact paper!  Thanks for the links back to my site! Has N ever experienced snow?

    • Many times, Melissa. We have family snowy places, and have a love affair with snow!

  3. I love contact paper projects.  So perfect for the littlest of artists.  And my older ones love to do them too.  Thanks for the link to my animal collage.  I also loved when we did it with play dough.  Worked really well and made for a really cool sun catcher   

    I am amazed with your daughters snow scene.  Great patterns and art work.  I think you  are right that contact paper is forgiving especially with foam.  I have got to use it this week.  Thanks for the reminder. 

    • Isn’t contact paper great? And you’re right — it’s useful for all ages. And I’m so happy to share your wonderful project!

  4. I wish I’d had this in my “arfts and crafts” arsenal for my 4-year old niece over Thanksgiving, but I’m not sure how we’d have fit it in with all the other projects we had to do.  This will be at the top of the list for our next visit.  She will love doing it, I’m sure.  Thanks for the great idea.

    • Yeah, it may have been one-too-many things for Thanksgiving day. I’m always amazed at how much is going on that day! Thanks for the comment.

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