snow people by lauren bergold

a couple of months ago my friend stef sent me a link to these adorable snowpeople by creative chick and i sort of fell in love with them. when i saw all the gorgeous trimmings and embellies in the november pixie dust paperie kit, SNOW SHOE, it ocurred to me that i had the makings of my very own snow family:

the only possible way to (very slightly) improve upon the originals was to replace the cute beads and gems with *CANDY*...so i did! this meant that i needed jars with lids, and that i had to trim off a very small amount of my styrofoam "snowballs" so that they'd be flat on the bottom and could be hot-glued to the lids of the jars.

one of the things that makes this a superbly economical project is that i used ordinary glass jars i already had: papa snowman is built around a mason jar that once held applesauce; mama was a previously a shaker jar full of red pepper flakes; junior was a salt shaker from the dollar store!

it may sound crazy when i tell you that i started by taking my lovely white styrofoam balls from michael's and painting them white (!!!) but styrofoam tends to shed flakey bits all over the place, and a coat of craft acrylic sealed them up nicely.

almost all of the embellies were right out of the kit: i the used gorgeous variety of my mind's eye "lost & found" brads for eyes, and the trimmings card from the same collection--plus a bit of the signature pixie dust seam binding, gathered with needle and thread--made for wonderful scarves. the carrot noses are the tips of wooden kitchen skewers, colored with a sharpie pen and cut down to size. there are a few punched snowflakes and hearts as accents, as well. nearly everything is affixed with hot glue for maximum security.

the only slightly "fiddly" bit was the making of hats, for which i covered bottle caps with paper and trim (for papa) and additional gathered seam binding (for mama). junior's hat is merely a bit of webster's trim that i have hot glued in concentric circles directly to his little head...probably a bad idea for the genuinely frosty variety of snowmen, but in this case it worked just fine! :)

a trip to the candy/baking supply store gave me more jar-filling options than i could've imagined: jordan almonds in every shade (including silver!), nonpareils in several sizes, white & pastel butter mints, tiny yogurt-covered pretzels, white chocolate buttons ...the list was almost endless! i settled on a few types of small mints for junior; yogurt-covered raisins for mama; and some really cool crystal-looking rock candy for papa.

i hope you will be inspired to create your very own snow people, and when you do, please leave a link so we can all come and admire them! ♥

***  ***  Kirsty's note ***  ***

The cutest family of the year! I love that little hat on junior, I thought it was one of your crocheted item, didn't know it was the MME's trim, you are just too clever Lauren!

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