Brrrrr

Since our typical summer weather pattern has returned here in Florida, working out in the yard gets a bit more complicated these days. Mind you, I'm not complaining because my lawn and gardens are happy campers about now, but, it is what makes it more important for me to find things to keep me busy inside. And yes, that would NOT include cleaning - which is always waiting and, if I ever get really desperate, will always be there!

And so, I am falling back on to some old Christmas ornament ideas. They may not be my favorite but I have the supplies and it keeps me busy...do you detect a theme here? Lol

I saw these snowmen heads on a site that I follow. The owner gave several different variations of them and the ones I liked the most used the air dry clay to cover the Styrofoam balls and add the features. Since I have done something close to this before, I chose to go the other route and just paint on the features and avoid the air dry clay all together. I was going to use the tip of the bamboo skewer for the nose but it looked way too thin for this sized ball so I thought of trying the tip of a chop stick instead. This may still not be quite big enough and I might still replace them with carrot noses formed from Sculpey clay if I get back to HL but, that will be an easy fix and I can do it whenever.

These snowmen start with the smooth Styrofoam balls because the surface of regular Styrofoam would be too difficult to paint a face onto. I will say that I had to use a sanding block to scrape off the ridge between the halves of the balls and also some little images that were stamped onto them. Luckily, they get a coat of light ivory paint and then the clear glitter should help hide any other imperfections.

Perhaps the hardest part of this project was sticking the skewer through the ball. This is done for two reasons. One is to give you something to hold while painting and two is to have a hole all the way through so that when you are done, you can feed a wire through. Sounds easy enough, right? NOPE! The foam in these balls is compressed and almost impossible to push through with just the skewer...it would either not go straight through or, when it did, it would pop out a big piece of the foam at the top. I finally realized that I have metal bar-b-que skewers and gave that a try. It was still difficult but much easier than the bamboo! 

Painted with a coat of light cream and ready for their faces.

Next came a simple face of pink cheeks, black eyes and mouth and the orange chop stick point for the nose.

After that was dry, the glitter went on...and, because it went on with Elmer's glue, most of the imperfections were easily covered.

Then, I threaded the wire through and twisted it into a hanger.

So this is where the inspiration ornament stopped. But, for some reason, I don't feel like he is finished. Since I really don't know what he needs, I pulled out a bunch of Christmas embellishments I have around. They all sounded cuter than they turned out to be so, right now, I am going to just add on some scarves made from an old plaid ribbon and call it a day. If, when I am next in HL, something better were to pop out at me, changes can always be made. But, for now, I am over this snowman and ready to move on to something new and a bit more exciting!

About all I did to prepare for the hurricane was to take down my pool umbrellas. They are new and I didn't want to take the the chance that an errant gust of wind might come through and send them flying. As it turned out, we didn't even get the lightest wisp of wind...and not more than a short, gentle rain. I'm not complaining but I sure am glad that I didn't spend any time really hunkering down. In any case, I'm off to put the umbrellas back and do a bit of weeding...and, maybe even a bit of vacuuming because our wet ground has sure dragged in lots of sand the last few weeks...and yes, it has been that long since I have done a good vacuuming.

I'll be back. Stay safe and stay tuned.