Country Snowman Snowcone

Technique: No Sew Fabric

Materials
styrofoam cone
styrofoam ball of a complimentary size to the cone
scrabs of fabric
buttons or eyes for stuffed toys
coloured pencils
sandpaper
cotton bud
foam glue
white quilt batting
black embroidery floss
raffia
small cuphook

Tools
scissors
serrated kitchen knife
embroidery needle
hot glue gun

Isn't he adorable! He's really easy to make too.

Start with your foam pieces. You want the ball to be a good enough size that it proportionally looks like a scoop of ice cream when placed on top of the cone. Now take a serrated knife and cut off a third from the ball, this helps it sit better and makes it look like the scoop of icecream is sitting inside the cone, just like a real one. I also dug out a little bit from the top of the cone with a teaspoon to give a little cavity for the fabric to sit in, so that the ball would sit flush on top of the cone.

Starting with the head, no glue yet, drape a piece of batting over the ball and draw in the V shape for his mouth. Using the black embroidery floss backstitch in the detail of his mouth. Now you can use foam glue and glue the piece of batting onto the ball, smoothing over the surface and pulling the pleats underneath to get it as flat as possible around the ball.. Once smoothed over I used an elastic band to secure it underneath while I set it to dry for an hour.

Choose a fabric for the cone and glue to cover. You could use 2.5" squares that you have tattered slightly for a more country look if you wish. I used one piece and started by folding a corner over the bottom tip of the cone, and then wrapping around and securing with glue, kind of like wrapping a present. Trim the excess at the top to about half an inch, and secure the excess into the recess you made with foam glue.

Once the head is dry, trim the batting underneath the ball. Use hot glue to secure the head to the cone. Rub a pink coloured pencil against sand paper so that you get pink coloured dust. Rub over the snowman's cheeks for colour. I used 7.5mm black eyes with screw points designed for use in stuffed animals for the eyes, these are great as you can screw them into the foam and they sit securely. If you cannot get any of these, buttons will be fine, I used a red button for the nose attached with hot glue.

I tore a one inch strip of checkered fabric from an old shirt and wrapped this around the join between cone and head as a scarfe, together with some raffia. To hang, screw a small cuphook into the top of the head.

Snowman Shaker Ornament

Technique: Die Cutting/Papercraft

Materials:
600gsm card stock
Tim Holtz Distress Inks:
* Faded Denim
acrylic paints
gel medium or adhesive of choice
old Christmas card
snowy glitter
scrap of acetate
craft snow
spray matte varnish

Tools:
Sizzix Big Shot machine
Tim Holtz Alterations
* Winter Wonderland die
* Base tray or Tags and Bookplates die
Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers
* Joy die
scissors
scalpel
Dremel tool

Run four sheets of card stock through the sizzix to get five snowman die cuts.  Put one through again using a base tray and the movers and shapers mini die to cut out the word JOY.  I don't have a base tray, but the tags and bookplates die has a large enough recess to fit the snowman into without cropping anything off him.

Stack the JOY snowman on top of one of the other snowmen and trace around the inside of the oval.

Draw around the inside oval.

When you take away the JOY snoman you will have a series of dotted lines where you drew around the oval, fill in the blanks and you should have an oval shape like this:

You should have an oval like this.

Use a craft scalpel or knife to carefully cut this oval shape out.  Now use that snowman to draw an oval on a second snowman blank and cut that out.  Confused?  You should now have:

1 x snowman with the word JOY cut into his belly

2 x snowman with ovals cut into his belly

2 x snowman with no alterations, put one of these aside for now, and use one as the base

Use the snowman with an oval belly as a template to cut a scene from the Christmas card.

Making the base: 

Glue the two snowman with ovals to an unaltered snowman base and allow to dry.  Glue the scene from the Christmas card into the recessed oval.

Decorating the top:

Take the JOY snowman and cut away his right arm.  Paint him white and ink the edges with a touch of faded denim distress ink.  Take the spare snowman and cut away his left arm, his hat and his nose.  Paint the hat black, the arm brown and the nose orange.  You can also paint the right arm on the base construction while you have the paints out.  Spray the snowman with a coat of matt varnish (you do this step now so it doesn't blemish the acetate).

Putting it all together:

You should have a base that has an oval recess with an image glued inside.  Cut a piece of acetate about a quarter of an inch larger than the oval recess.  Place a little snowy glitter inside the recess and glue the piece of acetate into place to seal it inside.  Glue the snowman with the JOY belly into place over the top of that and then glue the hat, nose and arm into place.  When dry drill a hole through the hat to hang him by and then add some craft snow.

Sparkling Snowman Ornament

Technique: Die Cutting/General Crafting

Materials:
1.5mm balsa wood
glitter
pva glue
white acrylic paint
scrap card or grungepaper

Tools:
Sizzix Big Shot die cutter machine
Winter Wonder die
paintbrush

The sizzix machine, and any dies that you use, do require an initial financial outlay, but once you have them you can produce ornaments for very little cost using a vast array of materials that you probably already have or can obtain cheaply.

For this ornament I chose balsa wood for the base once again. It's light weight, it's only $2 for a sheet that will yield half a dozen ornaments, and goes through the die cutting machine easily.

Cut one snowman from the balsa wood, this acts as the base. Give each side a coat of white acrylic and allow to dry. Working on one side at a time, apply a light coat of glue and then glitter.

Cut one snowflake from the same die with grungepaper. As much as I love balsa wood it doesn't cope with the small, intricate dies very well, so grungepaper is a better choice there (or card stock if that is what you have to hand).

Give the snowflake a coat of blue paint or ink if you prefer, and once dry as above, apply a coat of glue then blue glitter.

Attach the snowflake to the snowman with glue, and punch a hole in his hat for a hanger. I found it difficult to capture the sparkle that this ornament has on film, but it really is dazzling.

Styrofoam Snowman Ornament

Technique: General Crafting

Materials:
styrofoam egg and ball
foam glue
acrylic paint
glitter
buttons
Modge Podge or similar sealant
hot glue

Tools:
knife
hot glue gun

Take a small slice off one end of the styrofoam ball, and a similarly small slice off the narrow end of the egg, then glue the flat sides together to form the head and body of the snowman. 

Glue the ball to the egg to create a head and body.

Allow to try thoroughly.  Apply two coats of acrylic paint, again allowing each coat to dry thoroughly.  Apply glitter to the entire body of the snowman.  Use hot glue to attach the embellishments.

For the nose I used a tiny conical shaped sea shell which I painted orange and then dipped in orange glitter.  You could make one out of polymer clay if you prefer. Glue a hanger into the top of the snowman's head, and thread the string through the top of the hat.

A carrot nose made from a sea shell.

The scarf was crocheted with 8 ply yarn and a 4mm hook.  It was a very simple chain 51, turn, sc 50 and then add extra yarn at each end for the fringe.  You could cut one from felt if you don't knit or crochet.

You can find the pattern for the felted hat here.