Air Dry Clay Snowman + Giveaway

I fell in love with the cups!  That's my only excuse for buying something that most people threw away. They are waxy and oh, so cute!   I just knew I would find SOMETHING to do with them.  As you can see,  I did find something - an oh, so sweet snowman!  What a fun project - and so much easier than I thought it would be.

You need a couple of styrofoam balls - one slightly larger.  It's nice if the bottom one pretty much fills the diameter of the cup.  (Mine are 2" and 2 1/2".)  A skewer is a great idea.  It gives you something to hold on to while you're creating the snowman.  There is a lot of brands of air dry clay.  This is fairly reasonable and worked really well.  You need white air dry clay and then in addition, a little yellow and red to create the nose.  The first step is to create the body of the snowman.

First, I skewered the two styrofoam balls.   A little bit of water in a bowl will be handy to dip your fingers in.  The clay covers the styrofoam much easier if it's a little damp.  I just pinched off a bit of clay and rubbed it onto the styrofoam.  Once the balls are completely covered, mix a little yellow, red and white to create orange.  Roll into a nose shape.  Wet the end of the nose that will attach to the face  and make a little indention where the nose will go.  I just pushed it in a little with my finger.  Also go ahead and add eyes.  I used black brads - you could use clay, buttons, beads...  

Let him dry for a little while.  Add pink cheeks with ink, chalk, or marker.  Paint with liquid glue and sprinkle with course glitter.  (To age him, I put a couple of drops of walnut ink in water and spritzed  him with it.) Let him dry again.  Once you have all that done, cut off the skewer so that you have just enough left for the snowman to sit at the level you want in the cup. I put a square of styrofoam in the bottom.  I found that wasn't quite enough for the snowman to stay right where I wanted, so I filled in with tissue paper.  

Now he's ready to decorate.  To make his hat:  Cut 2 circles (mine are 1" and 1 1/2").  Cut a rectangle (mine is 1 1/2" tall by 2").  Roll the rectangle into a tube and glue the small circle on top and glue the bottom of the tube in the center of the larger circle.  I just stamped the wooden spoon with a cute little snowman and "Let it snow."

The cup is decorated, too.  A little felt scallop and snowflake.  I know that sounds like a lot.  But, really, it is actually pretty easy!

Even his backside is cute!

Let me know in your comment that you would like to win.  By random selection, I will pick one winner.  Winner will be announced on Monday, December 23rd.  I will ship after Christmas.  Just think you'll have your first project for next Christmas!

Clay Cherries for Paper Sweeties

Please scroll down one post to see a very fun notecard set for My Time Made Easy.  Thank you!

The July Paper Sweeties sketch is revealed!  And I had great fun with it.  I took the opportunity to make clay cherries!!  (More about those later.)  And okay, I admit I took liberties with the sketch.  But that's part of the fun, right?  I kind of squinched (is that a word?) the sketch and put the elements all in one place.  Here's the sketch:

And here is the envelope I created to hold my cherry cards and tags:

See what I mean about squinching?  The two banners and the sentiment are really all sharing the same space.  The hearts and word sentiments are from Little Wishes in the Paper Sweeties store.  Here's a closer look at the round cards and tags featuring clay cherries:

Doesn't it look like I had fun with this project?  The air dry clay is super easy to work with - I was amazed!

How simple is that?  The clay colors are very easy to mix.  You can create just about any color you like from white, red, yellow,, blue, and brown.  Let the clay dry for awhile - I let mine dry overnight.  It is very light, perfect for papercraft embellishments.  I hope you join us at the Paper Sweeties blog  - create a project using the sketch (even squinch it, if you want) and post it for us to see.  I'd love to see you there.

Additional Supplies   

clay mold    |    air dry clay

(I got mine at Michaels.)