A Simple Snowman Kit Just Like LL Bean's

It's been a pretty warm winter and there doesn't seem to be any snow in the horizon for South Jersey, but whether we get snow soon or not I want to be prepared to make the best snowman in town. I originaly saw this little snowman kit in an LL Bean catalog years ago. I thought it was so cute that I wanted to buy one for my children. As I recall, the price of the kit was more money than I was willing to part with, so I kind of forgot about it. That is until, I saw this on Pinterest and all the brain juices started flowing again.

My tutorial and kit are slightly different than hers, but I did use a lot of her same ideas.
Warning the following images may be disturbing.  (I'm a terrible photographer.)

Here's my end result.

Yes.  I know her's is way cuter!  You must keep in mind though, that I have two left feet -where my hands are supposed to be!

 Materials you will need are:
 aluminum foil
 orange FIMO (polymer clay)
 black FIMO
 red FIMO
 blue felt
 black felt
 glue gun
 pasta machine (optional)
 something to punch small holes with
 scissors
 fabric (if you want to make a pouch)
 ribbon (for the pouch you might want to make)
 iron on transfer paper (for the stinking pouch that now sounds like more trouble than it's worth)
 a printer (look just forget the stupid pouch and put it all in a box)

 First I made a carrot shape by scrunching up the aluminum foil.  I covered this foil carrot with some orange FIMO.

Shinny futuristic carrot nose.  

 To flatten the FIMO into sheets I used my craft only pasta machine.

 Don't use a pasta machine that you actually use for pasta because you might poison your entire family.

 Never craft in anger people!!!

 My next step was to make buttons for my snow person. I flattened red Fimo into sheets, then I used a spray can lid to cut the big circles from the polymer clay sheets. I cut three "buttons". I used a pen cap to cut the smaller button holes inside of each of these three circles. 

 After this, I took the black polymer clay and made small pebble sized balls. These will be my snow human's mouth. I tried to make them irregular so they resembled actual pebbles. I also made the f aux "coal" eyes this way. Use slightly larger clumps of clay and make the balls more angular for the "look" of coal. 

 You could make a pipe, but I didn't because I'm trying to get my husband to quit smoking and we all know how suggestive a sexy smoking snowman can be.

 Final chapter of our polymer clay sage ends in baking all your pieces at 230 degrees for like 30 minutes, or just follow your clay brand's instructions. 

 To make your scarf, cut a wide strip of blue felt and cut a fringe at the ends.

 Hat Process (warning this part may be complicated) To make the top hat, cut a large circle. You could use the circumference of a basketball as a guide. Cut out a circle inside this circle. Use the circumference of your head if you'd like. Now you will have two pieces, one will be the rim of your hat and the other will be the top of your hat. Next cut a rectangle that will go around the circumference of your rim. To find the size, measure the inside hole and multiply that by 3.14. This number is the length of your rectangle. Once your rectangle is cut, you will need to make half inch slits along the length of the rectangle. These slits will be glued along the rim and top. You need to cut slits so the felt won't bunch. Add hot glue to attach around the rim.  

Here's a great little video that shows this process.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP9qv9LMaVY  Isn't the video girl adorable?!  

Oh I also made a little sack.  I took some fabric and sewed up the sides and made a channel for the ribbon to go through.  Then I used my Silhouette to make an iron on transfer sheet and my printer.  I ironed this design onto the front and called it a day.  

How cute is this?!

Nydia 8)

An Easy to Make Valentine's Day Heart Garland

I might be a bit early with the Valentine's Day decor but I don't care.  January has nothing.  After the holidays winter should be embarrassed with itself.  So, move it along January I don't really care for you too much.

I lieu of February and it's Valentine's Day festivities, I've taken it upon myself to add to my smallish collection of decorative pieces.  I refuse to buy Valentine's decorations because I don't consider it as decor worthy as say, Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas.  So I'll be posting some crap crafts that I've made in honor of love and its celebratory day.

Here's a simple garland.  I made it after being inspired by one I saw on Pinterest, but for the life of me I can't find the original.  If someone out there knows who made the original version of this please let me know so I can give credit and a link.  I found this so cute and it's super simple to make and took about 15 minutes from start to finish.  Seriously people, I made this and put it together while playing Monopoly with my son.  I was the banker by the way.  That just goes to show you how truly quick and simple this is.  

Here's what you'll need:

• red felt
• slightly less red felt
• a sharp scissor
• some ribbon

First you will cut out small hearts.  You determine how many you will need since it depends on how long you want your garland to be.  

Once you have an amount of hearts that you are ok with, you can go ahead and cut little slits into the hearts.  These will be what you thread your ribbon through.  Fold each heart in half and make two small cuts.  

Lastly, thread the ribbon all the way through making sure to space the hearts evenly.  Knot the ends of the ribbon and you're finished. 

It's so sweet looking.  I just love it.  

Nydia 8)

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Easy to Make Valentine's Day Felt Flower Picture Frames

This past week was a bad week for me.  I couldn't even go to work.  I stayed home for four days sick, knee deep in boogers.  I had more boogers than you could shake a tissue at.  So while I was at home bored, I decided to go through one of my junk drawers and clean it out.  Guess what I found in there?   I  found a circular for Pier One and so as I looked through it, I saw a picture frames that had felt petals all over them.  They looked very feminine and looked very Valentiney (word?) and I thought I could make these.  Nothing against Pier One but they were priced like 15 to 30 dollars!  What?!!!
I guess depending on the size of the frame, but still that's so pricey.

These were made for just $3.49!  Hah!  Take that Pier One!  Please excuse the night time pictures.  

 I mean, I knew I had some picture frames sitting around the house that I wasn't using just waiting to be donated.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

 I said why not, worse comes to worse I can just throw them out. Plus, I had some felt left over from this project.

Gah, I just love the little knees! 

 I decided to hop to it.  First things first, I took out my handy dandy glue gun and began to cut out circles about one inch in diameter.  I cut more circles than you could ever imagine.  I'm talking an obsene amount of circles. 

Cut about 1,000,000 of these.

 So you take those circles and fold them in half.  Then you fold them in half again.  So you're folding them into quarters. 

 You're then going to be putting glue on the end of that.  This is what you're attatching to the frame.  You will do this row by row.  Try to do it neatly as you cover up the frame.  You'll know you're finished when you burn your fingerprints right off.  

So there you have it. Some super easy very cute Valentine's Day picture frames to give, to keep, or to throw at cats in heat!  

Nydia 8)

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Giveaway Winner Announcement

I'm sick with a wicked cold so I'm sorry I didn't announce this yesterday.  The winner is Kitty from A Law Student's Journey!  Please contact me with your information because for some reason I am unable to send you notification via email.  Thank you to those that entered.  I love seeing your submissions and your sites.  I find this blogging business a lot of fun and I'm glad there are so many of you out there that share the same interest.  Folks please wash your hands and bundle up.  I have such a nasty cold would hate anyone else to feel like this.

Nydia 8)