Scotland continues to have lots of snow and below freezing temperatures. The temptation to drop work and play all day outside is immense. Today, here’s what happened during my lunch break…

First I made some stencils, using scrap pieces of cardboard. But any objects or shapes would do.

There’s two ways to stencil. You can work within the pattern, like this…

Or you can make colour around the pattern, like this…

I used a standard spray bottle, a lot of food colouring and some water. It’s quite a lot of work doing the spraying and as it was very cold, the water started freezing in the tube within a few minutes.

Next, I’m going to reveal my “deadly secret weapons” food colouring mixed with water in a cup and a syringe…

Syringes are the solution in really cold weather as the pipe is fairly wide. Also it’s possible to write and mark make very accurately. This was one syringe-full of red:

Writing directions or messages is really easy too:

Now for the gory part. Please do not scroll down any further if you do not like blood. I decided to set up a fake accident for my son to find upon returning from school. It starts at the car with a blood spill:

Then I run along the path…

And try to get into my house…

My son wasn’t fooled. He’s grown up living with his mum and her tricks! Oh well. Think of the many more possibilities and enjoy playing with syringes in the snow.

This blog post was originally published in December 2010.