The Liebers: Snowman Trio

Sometimes life works out the way you expect it will. Most of the time, though, I think it surprises us. It surprises me at least. God likes to laugh at my plans. But ultimately, His plans work out in the end.

Our theme this month for the Blog With Friends challenge is "Celebrate." I'll admit that when I came up with a project idea, I was going to do it whether or not it fit the theme. I figured I'd just retrofit my project to the theme after I was done.

I wanted to make three snowman. I do things in threes because it's aesthetically pleasing. Also, because I have three kids and that way no one whines about being left out.

I bought my materials and set them on the kitchen/cacth-all table and then proceeded to have an incredibly busy weekend where I couldn't get any spare time. That was God laughing at my plans!

It got to Sunday night and I realized that if I was going to have a picture of my project by Monday morning, that I was going to have to just get it done. The boys were busy doing other things, so I asked Frances if she wanted to help. She's inherited my love of crafting so she was very eager to get started.

We went downstairs and raided my craft boxes. This stuff will likely be the last stuff to get unpacked because a) there's so much and b) I have no idea where to put it! We grabbed fabric, ribbon, buttons, string, Scrabble tiles, and anything else that caught our fancy. We loaded it all upstairs on to the dining room table and started planning.

LOL! Just kidding. We didn't plan anything, we just jumped right in and started cutting and gluing. We had no end result in mind, and that's where the celebration comes in: Frances and I just spent two hours together chatting, trying out things, and bouncing ideas off one another.

If you have a teenager, I don't think I have to tell you that unscripted one-on-one time is always a cause for celebration! It seems like it's been such a long time since she and I were just able to hang out together. There was no pressure to discuss homework or cleaning her room. There weren't rules I was trying to enforce, or even life lessons I was trying to impart. It was just simple crafting time together with my favorite daughter. And the snowmen came out pretty cute too!

If you'd like to recreate this project, here's a few more specifics for you. You'll need:

Styrofoam balls in various sizes. I was aiming for one big and two small. You could also do three of the same size, or small, medium, large.
Hot glue
Various notions (fabric scraps, yarns or string, buttons, etc.)
Toothpicks
A pool noodle cut in half for the base

We used toothpicks to stick our snowmen together and then we dug through all our notions until we were inspired. Frances enjoyed sorting through my button collection, so we used buttons to make the facial features. Orange toothpicks became the noses. I used the sleeve of an old turtleneck to make the penguin hat and tied it with a yellow ribbon. I used another scrap of red fabric and some pillow stuffing to create the other hat. The snowman in the middle has raffia braids and a scarf made from some scrap knitting I had done at some point.

We cut a pool noodle in half and covered it with red fabric to have something for the snowmen to sit on. Then we took some old Scrabble times and spelled out "Let it Snow" to display in front.

Our snowman trio now sits on the mantle in the living room to dress up to room a bit. And every time I see it, I hope it reminds me to plan some more craft afternoons with my best gal.