How to Make Holiday Window Clings

These holiday window clings are fun and easy to make. You can decorate your windows with festive creations featuring snowflakes, reindeer, candles or anything that appeals to you. The clings can also be used to decorate any other smooth glass surface in your home, such as shower enclosures, tabletops and mirrors. Your kids may even insist that they be used to embellish car windows.
Keep your first efforts simple by choosing pictures and patterns that don't have great amounts of detail. Children's coloring books are a terrific source for such line drawings. Pick fabric paints in fine-tipped containers that are slightly translucent or milky and have a gel-like consistency.

Things You'll Need

• Clear plastic sheet protectors Holiday pattern or picture Masking tape Fine-tipped fabric paints Cotton swabs Toothpicks

Instructions

1. Choose or create the image that you want for your holiday window cling.

2. Slip your pattern into a clear plastic sheet protector. Use masking tape to secure the protected pattern to a flat working surface.

3. Select a colored fabric paint to use for outlining the picture. Turn the closed paint container upside-down, and shake it vigorously. Remove air bubbles by gently tapping the tip of the sealed upside-down container on a hard surface a few times. Do this for each paint before using it.

4. Trace the drawing onto the plastic sheet protector with the outline color. Hold the paint container vertically as you trace steadily. Be sure that you make a thick layer of paint. If bubbles are produced as you paint, you are making the layer too thick. Easily correct any mistakes that you might make by wiping paint away with a cotton swab. When your outline is done, let it air dry for 2 or 3 hours.

5. Fill in the empty areas with other colored paints. Working in one small area at a time, apply a thick, smooth line of paint so that it touches the painted outline. Fill the entire area by placing more thick lines right next to each other.

6. Use a toothpick to blend colors together. Drag adjacent colors into each other by lightly scribbling back and forth between them until you can't tell that they were separate colors before.

7. Remove the tape and slide the painting so that it remains flat. Put it where it can dry. It's important that the painting not be moved around during drying time, which should be about 10 to 14 hours.

8. Peel your holiday window cling off the plastic sheet after the paint has completely dried. Decorate your windows and enjoy the holiday atmosphere that these creations inspire.

Tips & Warnings

• Make great paints for the kids to create clings with by tinting containers of white school glue with food coloring.

• Stick your holiday window clings only on glass surfaces. They can't be safely removed from paper, furniture or plastics.