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)