doilies, puzzle pieces and socks all make great snowmen

This started out as a completely different idea that flopped but I didn't feel like reworking the original idea yesterday and so this idea was born.

It was hard to photograph in early morning light and tacking it up isn't really the way to go but I wanted to get this up early! I really like it and my MIL whose style is predominantly white, lacy, cottagy with a large dose of old woman will probably love it.

Another puzzle piece craft. I love this little guy. He is adorable!!

I am seriously tempted to keep him.

These guys aren't my favorite but they are very, very tactile!! The girls loved the first two I made (the shorter ones) and requested some for themselves. So last night I made the two taller ones. K requested purple for hers and C really liked the guy with the hat. They are super duper easy - definitely a must if you have socks laying around!!

Snowmen and the Independence Day Weekend

We had a very busy Independence Day weekend - busy and good. Late Friday afternoon, I made my first snowman of the weekend. He was a tall snowman made out of the sleeves of two different types of sweaters.

The sleeve of a white sweater made his body and the sleeve and band from a Fair Isle sweater made his hat and scarf.

On Saturday morning, I made a bottle cap snowman (the one with sheet music) and a light bulb snowman.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the annual party that our neighbors throw. I didn't get an pictures of the girls because they spent most of their time in the backyard. But here are Chris and Kate's two adorable children.

I think K was the one who instigate H's tears.

Doesn't their daughter M have the most stunning eyes?

After the party, I had a photo shoot. Sunday morning we went to church. Sunday evening we went to fireworks.

Monday morning, I got up early and made the short sweater snowman then I worked on photos from the Saturday evening photo shoot. Monday afternoon, we went to the house of some friends for a pool party.

Monday evening, we went to more fireworks.

Hubby had yesterday off. I spent the day finishing photos from the weekend and making one last snowman (the dictionary page bottle cap snowman).

P.S. These snowman make 23-25.

Snowman No. 22

Snowmen in the summer? Yes, indeed!! You may ask why. The reason is simple, I am attempting to overwhelm my MIL with button-nosed snowmen for her birthday in September. As a personal goal, I've decided to try and create a hundred different types of snowmen. These tin can sweeties are number 22.

Hurricane Lamp Snowman and a Dreaming Knight Box

Well...I am back but probably with only once a week posting for awhile. I am totally cleaning and reorganizing my basement and until I have finished with this cleaning project, I need to avoid spending to much time in blogville.

Snowman 21

I apologize for not straightening all the tassels but this poor box will get crammed into a shipping box and arrive with the tassels all askew anyhow so....I feel lazy.

The First Tulips of Spring and Snowman 20

I am afraid it is really  hard to see but these tulips are glued onto some marbleized paper that the kids made. The tulips themselves are a symmetry project. 

Snowman twenty is a vanity light bulb and a glass light shade spray painted white. Her scarf is tulle and her hat is silver poinsettias that I burned the edges of (it wasn't part of the plan but I do like the way it looks). I think I might make another one like her. I really like the way she turned out. Maybe red poinsettias on the one I make for myself.

I will be sharing at:

Gorgeous Pinata, Snowman Finger Puppets, Thoughtful Gift, and A Beautiful Journal that I was Gifted

My oldest daughter's best friend had a birthday party on Saturday. It was just C and her friend Grace hanging out at Mall of America with Grace's dad. When I talked to C about buying something for Grace she said she wanted to draw Grace a picture. So we bought a frame and C drew this picture. She wrote a quote at the bottom about friendship it says "A friend is someone who comes to you and asks 'Can I help you?'"

Snowman finger puppets. These are made from film canisters and squeeze bottle lids. I made all these but the girls modeled them for me.

I think it was in the fall that Cecily from Craftopotamus made this absolutely gorgeous journal. When I told her how much I loved it she decided to give it to me. I got it in the mail about a week and a half ago. Isn't it gorgeous? Aren't I the luckiest?

How about this pinata I made? It is for the birthday party of a couple of the girl's in our school group. I think it is the prettiest pinata ever. It is your basic balloon pinata spray painted green and then covered over with Dollar Tree silk flowers.

I will be sharing this at:

Meandering Thoughts that Include Snowmen, Easter Baskets, Canada Geese, Symbols, Reasonings, and My Girls

The girls and I made these little Easter Baskets using applesauce cups, cotton balls, and pipe cleaners. C made the bunny, K the chick, and I made the odd looking lamb.

Soon I will be rubber-necking whenever I pass the Canada Geese because they will have those adorable balls of fluff following them around.

We went to the park with my dear friend and her youngest son. The girls get along with M so very, very well. Don't you love this shot? They were pretending to be Indians (Native Americans).

Today I am introducing snowmen 17-19 they are all spool snowmen but I am assigning them each their own spot. I didn't do that with the previous clothesline snowman family. Why? Because they were essentially the same thing over and over. In my opinion, these snowmen are three different takes on the same material. What do you think?

When the girls were small, I was amazed at how the girls could be shown an item that they hadn't seen before and that wasn't necessarily 'realistic' and recognize what it was. For instance, I was always amazed how a living frog, and a stuffed plush frog, and a cartoon drawing of a frog, and a realistic drawing of a frog could all be seen and deciphered as frog. Don't tell me you don't find that absolutely amazing. Sometimes the cartoon frog consists of three lines and a couple of circles and dots. The plush frog is a round ball with a suggestion of legs and bulging eyes...etc.


It is a marvel of the human mind that we are able to put together symbols or patterns and recognize them to mean something in very different contexts. The symbols for a snowman are white, 2-3 circles, black 'coal eyes, carrot or button nose, a mouth (sometimes coal bits), sometimes a top hat, sometimes a stocking hat, a scarf, stick arms, or sculpted arms.

Stack three graduated circles on top of each other and people will recognize a snowman. Paint black eyes, a carrot nose, and a mouth on something white and people assume that it is a representation of a snowman...

It makes my task easy. :)

I am gifted with language patterns when it comes to seeing metaphors and symbols. I also have a knack for seeing patterns in nature. I've noticed that I see things in nature that escape everyone else around me. What symbols or patterns are you particularly good at decoding?

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Rope Snowman (and an explanation)

My MIL collects many things and her collections are quite large (she has a huge house). Among her collections are snowmen. She likes button nose snowmen not carrot nose snowmen but if you look most snowmen are carrot nose. At Christmas I checked her snowmen, I don't think more than a handful had non-carrot noses.

I've decided to remedy the problem for her birthday (in September) so that this coming Christmas, she can decorate with button nose snowmen.

I have discovered that this self-imposed challenge is very invigorating. It makes me stretch my imagination and look at materials in a new way. I hope you stick with me through the journey.

Today I am revealing clothes line snowmen, which will make sixteen.

They took exactly a hundred feet of clothes line (I cut off about two inches when I finished the baby). The Teen-aged Son is a milk bottle, Pa is a coffee creamer bottle, Baby is a medicine bottle, and Ma is a giant plastic Easter Egg and a ball.

Ma seemed the perfect shape for an apron and so she is the inspiration for this whole group of 'country bumpkin' snowmen.

Getting a positive remark out of my husband for anything I do (including making great meals and dressing nice) is rare. He thought the baby was cute (and I thought the baby was dumb looking). :)

I will be sharing this at: