Tell Me A Story: DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A SNOWMAN?

Marcia Norwood
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com/

DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A SNOWMAN?

Christmas Countdown: 79 Days

Do you want to build a snowman?

Here's an adorable snowman gift container made from a plastic lemonade container.

My favorite powdered drink mix is Country Time Half & Half (half lemonade and half tea), and I've been drinking a LOT of it.

It's October. Christmas is only 79 days away - so start drinking lemonade, and saving those plastic containers

I found the cutest idea on how to upcycle the plastic containers into snowmen in Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication: Food Gifts.

Supplies: Plastic Lemonade Container, Rickrack, Pom-Poms, Pipecleaner, Orange Paper

Food Gifts has 150 simple holiday recipes, and 82 fun packages to wrap up the food gifts. Instructions for the snowman container are on page 108.

I used different materials for the snowmen I created rather than using the items listed in the magazine. My snowmen are a bit more elaborate. Aren't they adorable?! I spent about $27, and have enough supplies to make 15 - 20 snowmen. (This does not include the price of the lemonade.)

Choose which supplies to gather for your snowmen. Be creative with this fun and easy project!

Gather Supplies

Plastic Lemonade Containers
Chop Stick or Pencil (Wrap pipcleaners around this to create a nose)

Hot Glue & Hot Glue Gun or Tacky Craft Glue
Scissors
Pipecleaners 15 mm x 12mm (Chenille Stems) Various Colors to go between ear muffs
Pipecleaners 6 mm x 12 mm (Chenille Stems) ORANGE pipecleaners to make a NOSE.
Pom-Poms (Large Ones for Ear Muffs and Small Black ones for eyes)
Eyes (Wiggly Eyes - or you can use small black pom-poms)
Fleece Fabric (For scarf or you can use Rickrack as the magazine shows)

Pipecleaners (Chenille Stems) 15 mm x 12mm are wider than normal pipecleaners, and work well between pom-poms for ear muffs. Thinner (orange) pipecleaners (chenille stems) 6 mm x 12 mm are used to make the nose of the snowman.

I use the biggest pom-poms for the ear muffs.

All materials for the first set of snowmen I made came from Jo-Ann (fabric and craft stores.) The second set of pom-poms and pipecleaners I purchased from Hobby Lobby.

GLUE something on the top of the lid to cover the writing.

I used hot glue, and added some round Christmas tags (leftover from last year) to to top of the lids. You could glue on a circle of scrapbook paper, or fabric - or perhaps some yarn or doll hair.

Make the NOSE:
1. Cut an orange pipecleaner 8 and 1/2 to 9 inches long.

2. Wrap an orange pipecleaner around a chopstick or pencil...tapering the nose so it's smaller at one point.

3. Push the orange pipecleaner down until it comes off the chopstick. Scrunch it together to form a nose.

GLUE the NOSE in the center (front) of the lid.

Glue on the eyes. Use wiggly eyes, or tiny black pom-poms for the eyes, or no eyes at all. (The magazine had no eyes for their snowman.)

Glue on the earmuffs...First glue on the larger pipecleaner, and then add the large pom-poms.

It's SO much fun to mix and match colors!

Make the Scarf:

1. Make a pattern (rectangle) 22 inches long by 2 inches wide from paper.

2. Lay the paper pattern on the fleece fabric. (Pin pattern to fabric if you need to.

3. Cut out the scarf from the fleece fabric.

4. Cut the two short ends of the fleece fabric to make fringe on the end of the scarf.

Do you want to build a snowman?

They are just about the cutest things!

We'll talk about goodies to make and put inside them in an upcoming blog!