Make a Colorful Winter Hat Craft with Scratch Art

This winter hat craft might just be my favorite winter craft that we have done so far! I love the colorful designs that show through the black paint with the scratch art and the pompoms on the top add in some extra fun.

This was our first time trying scratch art and both my daughter and I are hooked! It’s so easy to do and so fun to create unique designs. We love exploring different painting techniques. Take a look at my collection of painting ideas for kids for more fun and creative art projects to try!

For this project, I created a winter hat printable to make this craft even easier for you. This template is available to my email subscribers as part of my free printable resource library. Sign up to my email list below to gain instant access.

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Create Your Own Winter Hat Craft with Scratch Art

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Supplies

• White cardstock    
• Winter hat printable (get it below)
• Oil pastels   
• Black acrylic paint
• Paintbrushes
• Bamboo skewers or toothpicks
• Pompoms  
• White glue   
• Scissors    

Instructions

1. First, print out your winter hat template (scroll down to grab it). There are 2 hats on 1 page so each child can make 2 or you can cut the paper in half. This is such a fun craft, kids will want to make more than 1! Print the template on white cardstock. 

Related: Winter Scrape Painting with Narwhal Printable   

2. Using oil pastels, have kids color in their hats using a variety of colors in any pattern they like. You can do diagonal stripes, horizontal stripes, a circle pattern, any design will work. I love using oil pastels, they are so bright and vivid and really help to make this project extra colorful. 

You can color in the top part of the hat where the pompom will go or simply leave it white since it will mostly be covered up anyways.

3. I did a lot of experimenting with the black paint on top. Some suggest to put in a drop or 2 of dish soap to the paint to help it scratch off nicely. But actually, I found that it didn’t matter if I used dish soap or not with the brand of paint that I used.

I think the best thing is to do a small quick test with your paint because the paint can differ quite a bit. Add in a drop or 2 of dish soap to see if that makes a difference when you scratch in your design. 

Cut out your hat first before painting. Have kids paint on a thin layer of black paint over their oil pastel design. Let the paint dry completely before moving to the next step.

4. Now the fun part! Using a bamboo skewer (or toothpick) kids can scratch in their designs on their winter hat. It’s so neat to see the colors come through as you are scratching. 

I found that the best tools for scratching are ones with a sharp point such as a bamboo skewer and toothpick. We tried using chopsticks, but the ends were too large and the paint didn’t scratch off nicely. 

5. Once you are finished scratching in your designs, you can take some pompoms and glue them to the top of your hat. We used white glue for this and it worked great. 

I love how colorful this winter hat craft turned out! Scratch art is so fun for kids, both my daughter and I had a lot of fun scratching in our designs. We will definitely use this technique again in another project.

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