This charming little snowman ornament has always been a favorite on our family tree. I made him when my adult kids were very young. This was back when I had lots of little mismatched socks floating around the dresser drawers, under beds and stuffed between cushions in my living room! So the supplies needed for my snowball juggler will be easy for young parents to acquire.
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| This snowman juggles snowballs on my Christmas tree every year! |
- white or ivory felt
- red and stripped children's socks
- plaid wool scraps for snowman's scarf
- pom pom to match the sock for your snowman's stocking hat
- papier-mâché pulp (Celluclay)
- brown embroidery floss and needle
- thin wire
- cotton batting (stuffing)
- Sculpey (white, oven bake clay)
- black, white and orange acrylic paints
- white, translucent glitter
- miniature cookie cutter for the button
- tacky white glue
- Draw and cut a snowman's body in any size that you like. You can trace the general shape of my snowman from the photo above. I did not really use a pattern of any kind to make my juggler; snowmen can be just about any lumpy shape and they will look cute.
- Trace around the pattern with a soft pencil on top of your white felt. I used ivory colored felt for my snowman but that is what I had on hand at the time.
- Leave the bottom end of the felt snowman open. Turn the felt sewing inside out and stuff the snowman's body with cotton batting.
- Sew the opening of his body shut using a slip stitch.
- After this step, I used brown embroidery floss to embellish the seams of my snowman with a blanket stitch. Then I also added the words, "Let It Snow" with a back stitch across the lower half of his body.
- Then I took a child's red sock and cut off it's cuffs and toe in order to wrap the remaining tube around my snowman's torso. Then I cut the remaining cuff of the sock in half and wrapped these around the snowman's arms, whip stitching the sides together with red thread. I also turned under all of my sock seams and whip stitched these shut so that my knit sock sweater would not unravel with use over time.
- Cut a thin piece of plaid wool and wrap it around the snowman's neck to give him a scarf.
- Cut the toe from a second baby sock, roll it's edges a bit and fit this over your snowman's head. Whip stitch around this stocking cap in order to keep it in place. Sew on a matching pom pom.
- Unwrap your Sculpey, roll out a carrot shape for his nose and cut out a tiny snowman using a miniature cookie cutter. Take your embroidery needle and add two button holes through the clay before backing everything at 170 degrees in the oven for ten minutes.
- Let the clay cool and paint the nose bright orange. Paint the button as you please.
- Glue the carrot nose onto the snowman's face.
- Paint a few black dots for eyes and a mouth to imitate coal.
- Sew on the clay button to the snowman's sweater.
- Clip and bend you wire and poke this with a bit of tacky glue on it's tips, through the felt hands of your snowman. It helps for the end tips to be bent a bit so that the wire will not work it's way out of the felt over time. You will need to wrestle with this a little but it is not as hard to insert as it sounds.
- Take a bit of Celluclay from it's package and add a very small amount of water to the mixture. Stir and form snowballs over the wire armature. Let this dry hard overnight.
- Paint the snowballs with white acrylics and then glue on the translucent glitter to finish your juggling snowman ornament.
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| Close up shots of my juggling snowman. |
How to craft more snow people for Christmas:
- Snowman crafts from favecrafts
- Claypot snowman craft for Kids
- Laughing snowman paper bag craft
- Snowman craft idea using white chrysanthemums
- Cute pom pom snowman craft
- Glass block snowmen (video)
- A wooden melted snowman craft
- Snowglobe Snowman
- Craft a Paper Snowman Wreath
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