Make your own snow at home: Long Island experts share tips for a DIY snow day

Build a snow hut under your dining room table. Prepare home-cooked snow in your kitchen. Mold snowballs in your bedroom. If you’re wishing for snow, or you love playing in it but hate bundling up, you can concoct pretend snow in any room this winter, regardless of the weather. With a dash of baking soda, a pinch of cornstarch and a squirt of shaving cream, you’re on your way.

Mary Clare Kasel, 6, of Garden City, has created make-believe snow at home with her mom, Emily Kasel, founder of Kasel Krafts sensory kit company. Mary Clare says, “The most fun part is feeling the snow when it’s forming. It’s squishy and squashy.”

Here's how to dream up a snow day at home or at Long Island venues. 

MAKE POWDERY OR MOLDABLE SNOW

At Not Just Art (a creative enrichment center), kids who attend the Crazy Concoctions class combine ingredients that make different types of snow. To explore more, they put the snow in the freezer and examine texture changes. Owner Eva Regulski shares her snow ingredients:

• Materials for all types of snow: small cups, spoons, scoops for measuring, aluminum tray, figurines such as reindeer, tiny trucks and pinecones to make a winter scene.
• Fluffy snow ingredients: 2 cups baking soda, 2 tablespoons salt, 2 teaspoons liquid clear or blue dish soap. Instructions: Mix baking soda and salt together, then carefully add dish soap (one teaspoon at a time) and mix well.
• Crumbly snow ingredients: 1 cup baking soda, 1 cup cornstarch, ½- ¾cup water. Mix baking soda and cornstarch. Mix in water, a little at a time, until you get the consistency of snow.
• Moldable snow ingredients: 2½ cups baking soda, ½cup white hair conditioner. Pour the baking soda into the aluminum tray. Add conditioner, a little at a time, knead it into the baking soda. Pour baking soda into tray. Add some of the shaving cream and knead it into the baking soda until the mixture feels like snow. Or, try 2 cups baking soda, 2 cups shaving cream.

More info: 183 South St., Oyster Bay; 516-922-8300; notjustart.com. The  Crazy Concoctions class series runs 11 weeks for $470. Drop-in options are available. 

MAKE DOUGH SNOW

Kasel Krafts, a Garden City-based company, features sensory kits that inspire endless play and imagination. Kasel assembles each kit. It includes dough plus an innovative collection of themed figurines and cool crafts to build imaginary worlds. Kasel’s latest creation is the snow sensory play kit, available on the website. Kasel shares her recipe:

• Ingredients: ½cup baby lotion or regular lotion, 1 cup cornstarch, 2-3 tablespoons glitter (optional) in the color of your choice; silver works well.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the cornstarch and lotion until combined. Place it on wax or parchment paper. Knead the dough until it forms a dough-like consistency. It will feel sticky at first but keep at it. If after 10 minutes the dough feels too sticky, add a tablespoon of cornstarch. If it’s too crumbly, add a small amount of lotion at a time and knead it until it feels like snow. Add glitter to make it glisten.

Use your dough to build a magical wonderland: a snow girl, snowballs, igloos and more. Add tiny toys such as "Frozen"-themed figurines. Give the snow girl an acorn cap for a hat and pipe cleaner arms.

More info: kaselkrafts.com. The snow kit costs $22. It includes a 5-ounce container of non-toxic sensory dough with snowflake charms and acrylic ice.

MAKE A SNOW HUT

Larissa Grass, director of education at Gallery North, offers art workshops for children in the studio. Kids build everything from puppets to marble mazes. Grass says some of her fondest memories date back to the days when she created winter wonderlands with her own children under the dining room table. Here’s how:

• Materials: large table; square pieces of white paper; tape; string or yarn; pillows with white cases; cotton balls; large white bed sheet to cover the table; kid-safe string of holiday lights or flashlight.

Instructions: Choose a large table as the base for your hut. Remove chairs. Fold the white paper into a triangle, then into a smaller triangle, cut zig-zag shapes along the edges. The paper opens into a snowflake. Make several snowflakes, then using the tape and string, hang the snowflakes under the table. Tape cotton balls on string and hang them below the table as well. Set the pillows under the table as snow mounds. Put a flashlight or kid-safe string lights inside. Drape the bed sheet over the table leaving one side higher than the rest for an entry way.

More info: 90 N. Country Rd., Setauket; 631-751-2676; gallerynorth.org

MAKE SNOW CUPCAKES

What’s Cooking chef/owner Nadya Sprei offers a Winter Wonderland cooking workshop for kids. Little ones make snow-covered cupcakes topped with snowmen, stars, and festive designs. Sprei shares her snow cupcake recipe:

Ingredients: store bought cupcakes and vanilla icing, confectionary sugar; purchase on Amazon or in supermarkets: Colombina Sweet Christmas marshmallows (or any brand), Manvscakes snowflake confetti sprinkles, Wilton edible silver glitter spray.

Spread vanilla icing across the tops of the cupcakes. Place mini marshmallows atop for snow mounds. Put three marshmallows together to make a snowman. Spray glitter snowflakes and pour sprinkles on the cupcake. Add a snow-powdery touch with confectionary sugar.

More info: 30 E. Main St., Oyster Bay; 516-922-2665; whatscookingny.com. Class is $50 per child.