more snow babies

These are the two little snow babies that are joining my collection. The guy on the left is made from a parmesan cheese shaker and the one on the right is an old pint milk bottle. I just can't begin to tell you how fun it is to make these. Each one took on a little personality as I worked with them. We used all sorts of goodies to create them including bits and baubles from old jewelry, old cookie cutters, jingle bells, wire, ribbons, safety pins, brads, bottle stopper and lots of glittery goodness. I think my cousin and I have started a tradition we'll long to continue. It's so much fun to get together and make things like we did when we were teenagers before college and husbands and kids and jobs took priority. That's one of the blessings of having teenagers and working part time. We can play again once in a while.



Here's last year's snow babies that were in the Cloth Paper Scissors Newsletter. That was so fun. I can hardly wait to unpack the holiday decorations. For now the two newbies are hanging out in the craft room with me. I haven't figured out their names yet.

snow babies

Here's a peek at the newest crop of bottle snow babies. My cousin came for a visit a couple of weeks ago and we made 34 of these guys. We didn't get to the glitter part while she was here, and I just got to that last week. These guys are all boxed up to take to a craft fair in a couple of weeks. It's been years since I did a craft fair, but I'm drowning in crafty goodness that really needs to find new homes. My friend who makes amazing candles is hosting a quick afternoon holiday open house in a couple of weeks. It's the perfect venue to hop back into the fray and it's before mom's surgery. Perfect. Here's the link to last year's edition in case you missed them.

I'm running off this afternoon to an event called Wrap Up Christmas with some of my stamping friends at the scrapbook shop down the hill. It's a wonderful event with lots of inspiration, make and takes, and yummy food. Can't wait. I hope you're having a beautiful Sunday. Thanks for stopping by.

the gang's all here now

Here's the whole crew of snow people. The top photo shows my gang all together. The second photo is of the snow family that my cousin, Terry, made. We had so much fun making these new additions to our holiday decor. I'm thinking the best part of this project is that now when we put out our holiday decorations, we will remember how much fun we had together. If you missed the previous days' posts, there are lots of details about how I made each snow person. Terry used fine glitter on her snow people and beautiful pastel colors. They are so soft and shimmery in person.

Thanks for joining me on this journey with the snow people. I can hardly wait to get out the holiday decorations now and get the house looking festive. I'm including these guys in the Mixed Media Monday ornamental challenge this week. We started making them on Monday, so I think it's appropriate.

I'll leave you with a couple of close up shots of Terry's snow family:

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.

meet the girls,

Here are a couple more of the little snow girls. These two little cuties are made from salt shakers. We'll start with Lois on the left. She has a thimble and lone clip-on earring for her hat, with some millinery pearls and leaf behind it. Her scarf is made of felt with a rhinestone buckle. There are some rhinestones from old jewelry on her dress and the word celebrate is down at the bottom. My favorite part of her is her old metal curler wings.

Next up we have Pearl on the right. She has lots of gold tones. Her eyes and mouth are made of brads and her nose is a metal photo holder. Her hat and halo are made of a copper fitting, an ornament top, wire, small key, pearls, bells, large medallion, and a rhinestone. She has some tinsel, wire, a bead and leaves around her neck and the word dream with a pearl down at the bottom. Feather wings finish her ensemble.

I love these little salt shaker snow people. We sort of came up with this idea at the last minute. We walked through a small antique shop on the way to pick up Kyle from school trying to find some icing tips to make hats. Then we saw two unmatched salt shakers. Pearl is made from one of them, and the other is in Terry's snow people family. Lois and the other like her in Terry's set came out of the cupboard. We emptied out the salt and peper and used them to make these. Don't worry, I have another set of salt and pepper on the stove for now. They could be in snow people set #2, though.

introducing big mama

My cousin, Terry, and I decided to have a crafty sleepover party this week. We had both been so inspired by the snowmen bottles in Cloth Paper Scissors that we had to try them. This is the first of 11 snow people I'm sharing with you this week. We called her Big Mama because it just sort of fit. Her base is a small glass flower vase and the head is made from air dry prang clay. The rest is a huge assortment of treasures from my stash. It took us a couple of hours just to dig out everything we wanted to use to create our snow families. She has a vintage felt bird on her hat that is fashioned out of a rusty washer and plastic plumbing piece. Her scarf is a feather boa and her wings are real feathers. Her eyes are made of brads and her nose is a game piece. She has a rub-on sentiment down at the bottom and some beaded trim and millinery flowers finish off her ensemble. Of course she is covered in vintage chunky glitter to add the touch of snow everywhere.

What a wonderful time we had getting glitter, glue, and feathers all over everything. We decided that we now see why people make dolls. These little snow people took on such personalities as we created them. I have pictures of Terry's snow people to share also, since she doesn't have a blog yet. She needs one, though. It was so much fun to create together, it's been too many years since we did that. We learned to sew together when we were in Kindergarten with our first sewing machines. Terry is a much more accomplished seamstress than I am, but working with these little people was a great equalizer. We live about a day's drive away from each other, but something tells me that we'll be making that drive more often now that our kids are teens and young adults.

It's been an amazing week for me. My hubby swept me away to San Diego this weekend for our 18th anniversary. We spent an entire day in the art museums at Balboa Park. We ate every single yummy thing our hearts desired and filled up our wells with beautiful inspiration. The weather was picture perfect and it is such a vibrant city. I think my muse really loved the museums. She has lots of ideas now.