WINTER SNOW PEOPLE ALA CLOTH PAPER SCISSORS MAGAZINE

The November/December 2008 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine had a little team of delightful snow people on the front cover. Inside, the article by the artist, Sue Pelletier, urged us to have fun by making our own snowmen from found objects. They have been appearing all over blogland and the magazine got so much response that they published a little eletter to show us some. You can see it here. I finally decided to jump in, too! I made and gave away quite a few as gifts (which I have no pictures of), but here's a late gift I finished this morning. This lovely couple, Joy and Hope had a previous life as a Tazo tea bottle (left) and an olive oil bottle (right). The heads are paper clay covered with white glitter and decorated with black rhinestones and a little copper soldering tape for the nose. I partially filled each bottle with a pearl tree rope and then decorated the outside with rhinestones, deconstructed earrings and bracelets, and constructed a little hat for each. The Joy and Hope in the center of each bottle were made by applying silver ground glass glitter with glue to stickers and then gluing them to the bottles. As time goes on, the silver glitter will oxidize and the letters will be darker in color. To match this anticipated change, I finished the bottles with black velvet flowered ribbons. (Yes, Deann, this is ribbon I bought at ARCHIVER'S). I then covered the bottles with spray adhesive and sprinkled them with vintage mica flakes I received as part of my gift in the Christmas Cracker Swap. I am gifting this pair to my friend Mark. I had originally planned to give him the snowman with the cowboy hat (which I shaped myself), but after I had finished this pair, I just couldn't stand to break up the set.

If you have been thinking about making these, I heartily recommend that you get started. I had never used paper clay before, but it was not difficult and the end result is prettier than Styrofoam. I do have one little practice hint: Form the heads and push them onto the bottles. Cover immediately with a generous layer of Golden Gel Medium and cover with white glitter. Then leave the heads for a few days to dry before decorating the rest of the bottles. During the pre-Christmas rush, I made 4 heads without covering with the gel medium and glitter and went out shopping for a couple of hours. When I came back, it was Nightmare before Christmas. The heads had cracks all over them and looked a little spooky. I was able to salvage them, by covering them with a heavy coat of glitter and giving them scarves and hats in strategic places, but I noticed that when I covered them with the gel medium and glitter right away, none of them cracked. Thought I would pass this little tip along to you.

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year!