With our recent snowfall I was itching to build a snowman.
But with chilly temperatures in the teens, I opted to make snowmen made out of old socks with the kids today. A much warmer and craftier option.
Katie suggested I write down who is in our new Valentines Snowmen Family. We shared some giggles tonight as we described ourselves. Or, our snowmen selves. From left to right: Katie (strangely the same height as Daddy and hourglass shaped), Daniel (thankful to be lacking a flower accent, with boyish brown buttons), Ben (a little round in the middle - honestly, not intentional), Debbie (statuesque and should we say - a little flat chested), and cutesty Christina (the littlest of the bunch).
I was so happy to find an inspiration sock - one of Christina's old Valentines socks - that kicked this project off! A red argyle sock of Ben's worked well with the color scheme and a pale pink one of mine came in handy too.
And the next set of SnowKidlets from left to right: Christina/Pinky, Daniel (always chooses black), and Preppy Katie.
So here's the background on these sweet snowmen. Katie, Christina, and I filled a bunch of socks - taken from a bag that were missing their mates with dried beans. It felt so good to use our food storage! Hee hee. Katie started getting frustrated with the project and lost interest. It took some figuring out how to shape the snowmen. I find most crafts have a learning curve and are a bit tricky to figure out, but then it might just be me. 
Christina continued with me, however, until she started getting messy in her creating. Somehow this Little Missy finds a way to make most things a messy experience. I went in our bedroom for just a few minutes and came back to this! Even with beans all over the kitchen floor, I stuck with the project and encouraged Christina to sweep up her mess. As the typical baby of the family, she tried to get Daniel to help her clean, singing the "What's Gonna Work? Team Work" song. Gotta love a little Love & Logic parenting moment as I held my ground and had her clean it up.
Daniel became interested in designing a snowman too, requesting one in black and red, but mostly enjoyed filling it with beans.
I've found some great new crafty blogs recently. I love finding practical, thrifty blogs with cute ideas that use items I typically have on hand. When I saw
this link, I thought of my bag of "socks without mates" that was itching to be utilized. This was such a fun project - different than anything I've done in a long time. Once again, I had most of the required materials on hand: white socks (tube and calf length work best), colored/patterned socks, hot glue gun, twine and embroidery thread, ribbon, buttons, black sequins, and coordinating embellishments. I used dried beans to fill the socks, but rice also works. The blog's craft creator used BBQ sticks (what is it with everyone having BBQ sticks on hand?), but since I didn't have any, I used some toothpicks that I colored orange. When they were complete, I wished I'd had some small black buttons for the eyes, but the black sequins worked okay too.
While we drank our hot cocoa this afternoon, the kids wanted their look-alike snowman by their mug. It was the perfect project for a snowed-in Snow Day!
