here come the boys...

Introducing Leon and John. These adorable fellas are made from spice jars. I don't think I mentioned earlier that the inside of the jars are filled with beads and baubles. It's hard to see them in the pics, but they add a little weight to the bottom and extra shimmer. One of the spice bottles is a vintage one I picked up in my treasure hunting and the other had dill in it until a few days ago. It was fun raiding the cupboards to make these families. You can see the mag in the back of the photo where we got the idea to make these. We attached the glitter to the heads and hats with Golden gel medium and to the bottles with Crystal Effects. Both were applied with a brush to small areas and then glitter poured over. The glitter we used is all really old. The chunky glitter that I used seems to still be shedding, so I may have to do something else to it to get it to stay on better. Anyone have an idea about that?

Ok, so on the left is Leon. He is made from the current dill spice jar. His eyes and mouth are brads, his nose is a game piece from who knows what game. I have a big bag of game pieces that I've collected over time. The hat is a wooden game piece wrapped with wire and a bell and bauble are attached. He has tinsel around his neck with a rhinestone bobby pin going down the front. I attached letters spelling out noel to the bobby pin. My mom has these ceramic letters that spell noel that she's put out for decoration for as long as I can remember. It is still great fun to sneak in and rearrange those letters to another word. Leon is a favorite of mine.

Next up is John. He is sporting a salt shaker hat from the Pearl salt shaker shown yesterday. In his hat are a variety of pins and wire with beads and baubles. His eyes and mouth are brads. His nose is a vintage pen nib. He is sporting wire around his neck and a leaf, vintage key, candy cane, and baubles are in the mix. The little red metal piece is from an elastic wrapper. The word at the bottom is winter. John and his mate Pearl are made for my great grandma and grandpa who are no longer with us to celebrate. They were the sweetest little grandma and grandpa. I thought they should be a part of the snow people who will adorn our mantel. Lois is representative of my great aunt Lois. She was a wonderful cook and a very snappy dresser. I wish she were here to celebrate with us, also.

Tomorrow I'll show the whole crew along with Terry's snow family. Hers are so very different from mine. Can't wait to show you. Thanks for stopping by.