It was really difficult figuring out which Artisan Crafts category this went into. Some pieces involve glass or sculpture, but others involve woodworking, textiles, or just simple assembly. So "Other" it is.

About a year and a half ago (that'd be fall 2007), I decided to make my mother a set of snowman ornaments for Christmas. She had plans to get a white Christmas tree and decorate it with nothing but snowmen, and I felt it would be fun to help her out while simultaneously giving her a unique, handmade, one-of-a-kind gift.

For ideas and references, I went trolling the internet to look at existing snowman ornaments (thank you, Google Image Search). One or two sparked ideas in my head, one or two made me go "Oh, that looks simple enough to recreate," and one or two had me gushing over how cute the ornaments were (luckily, those last ones included directions for making your own). Armed with ideas and a list of supplies, I hit up the local craft stores so I could get started.

I won't bore you with the nitty gritty details of how I scrapped at least one idea and had to redo one or two others, or how I learned the hard way that my beat up old table doesn't much like non-acetone nail polish remover, or how we had to formulate the precise water-to-rubbing-alcohol ratio to make very fine gltter sink at just the right speed. I may tell you how one ornament completely morphed into a different one when it started melting. We'll see when we get there.

And lucky you, I have a Hard Lesson Learned to go with each of these.

Starting at the left, our first snowy contender is the Wreath Snowman. The wreath is hand-sculpted Sculpey clay, baked and then painted with craft paints. I made the snowman out of pompoms and a black sequin, with paint for details, and the bows were scavenged from some Christmas string a few years previous. Hard Lesson Learned: make sure to put the eyelet in before you bake the Sculpey. It's tremendously difficult to get it in after the fact.

Next is the Dangly Snowman. This little guy was inspired by ornaments I saw online, though sadly I did not have translucent plastic spheres to use as snowman heads. Instead, his head is a painted wooden bead. An eyelet at the bottom of the bead allows for the rest of the dangle to hang by interconnected eyelet pins strung with white and ice-blue seed beads. The present and snowflake are both ornaments, and the peppermint candy is more Sculpey. The snowman's earmuffs are pompoms and pipe cleaners, and his scarf is leftover sock from one of the other snowmen. Hard Lesson Learned: cheapo plastic snowflake ornaments don't hold up well to twisting while you adjust the wire. Grip something else.

Top and center is the Snowglobe That Almost Was. This is the ornament that morphed halfway through. What you see here is a baby food jar lid with a molded hill of Sculpey (baked before gluing in), painted white and light blue. A safety pin baked into the Sculpey (see, I learned!) allows it to hang from a string, and there are snowflake sequins as well as a glass Christmas tree and glass snowman glued into the snow. What's missing is the jar itself, which would have been the dome for the snowglobe, and the original hill, which was made of styrofoam (sealed with mod podge and painted white before being sealed again). Unfortunately, the water/alcohol mixture we needed to use for the glitter ate away at the paint and styrofoam, causing clouding in the water and forcing me to scrap that idea. Hard Lesson Learned: always test your liquids on your paints, glues, plastics, etc. before you fully seal the jar. Otherwise you'll be wasting glitter.

Below the STAW, we have the Snow-Belly Snowman. This guy was inspired by some much cheaper-looking snowman projects I saw online (which should say a lot). He's a clear glass ornament (you can buy them at the craft store for painting and other projects) filled with iridescent white glitter-flakes, glued to a white-painted styrofoam head with a toothpick for a carrot nose. The scarf is a scrap of broadcloth leftover from one of the other snowmen, and the earmuffs are, once again, pompoms and a pipe cleaner. To keep the eyelet from pulling out of the styrofoam, I actually used a head pin (kind of like a nail, with a flat head), fed through a sequin, as an anchor inside the snowman's head where it joins the body. The pin goes all the way through his head to the top, where I twisted it into a loop very carefully and then secured it into the head with glue. Hard Lessons Learned: Hot glue drips. Srsly. And glitter is a pain in the but to sort out when it comes pre-mixed with two different colored snowflake sequins and a bunch of white bird sequins. Aaargh.

Next is my personal favorite, Comrade Snowman. He is so named because his hat looked like a nice Communist-red Cossack hat (to me, at least) before I added the pompom on top. He's a clear spray bottle from the travel-size rack at Walmart, with the straw for the pump snipped out. His head is painted, his hat and scarf are leftover sock material from the last snowman, and the mini-ornament present in his hands is held by pipe cleaner arms. There's also a clear snowflake sequin glued to his hat. He's filled with that same water/alcohol mixture and glitter, so he really is a working snowglobe. ^_^ Hard Lessons Learned: make sure you properly water-seal your snipped pump assembly before you glue it onto the snowman's body. Remember how the water/alcohol eats paint? Yeah. His face started melting until I opened him up and hot-glued the inside of his head.

Last, we have the Light Bulb Snowman. This guy was made mostly according to directions found on the internet, with a bit to make it more personal. He's an old incandescent light bulb, modpodged and then painted to make him white. His hat and muff are parts of a sock, the same sock as the red bits on the other snowmen (yes, really). His arms are pipe cleaners (instead of the broken toothpicks called for in the directions), his nose is a toothpick, and his scarf is part of a broadcloth quilting square. His coal buttons are actual tiny buttons. I had to sew his and Comrade Snowman's hats twice each (yay for having two socks), because I goofed both on the first try. But I prevailed in the end, especially when I figured out how to make Light Bulb here hang straight instead of leaning forward like the web-directions had him. Hard Lessons Learned: for some reason, hanging the light bulb out in the cold November air to dry makes the mod podge and paint crack slightly. I have yet to figure out how to remedy this, but in the future, I should hang these projects down in the basement or just in our bathroom. Eyup.

If anyone wants more detailed directions on some of these, don't hesitate to send me a note.

TD: Various and sundry craft supplies from Michael's and Jo-Ann's. Approx. 2 hours per snowman, average.

Steal, and I throw glitter snowballs at your head.