More Sock Snowmen

I loved making the first pair of sock snowmen so much that I went to Vinnies and got some more socks. Yay Vinnies! I got 3 pairs of socks AND an Agatha Christie for $3.50.

Actually I still had quite a bit left of the white socks so I used the rest of that up for the bodies, along with the new socks for the jumpers and hats.

I also fixed up the poor floppy fat snowman from before by emptying most of his rice and filling up the rest with stuffing in my patented* rice AND stuffing system.

Now he is skinny!

Filling with stuffing makes it easier to give a snowman-like appearance without tying the ribbon at the top and bottom of the jumper, so I didn't bother with these ones. I just shaped the stuffing into sections as it went in, and the elasticity of the socks does the rest. Or you can just separate the head and body into two sections, which is cute too.

Lots of buttons used up! And some other bits and pieces from my stash.

What a cute little line up!

*Not at all patented.

Little crafts with magnets and cinnamon

A couple of weeks ago I had some friends over for a Christmas crafts afternoon. We focused mainly on cards (which I won't show because I'll be posting them soon), but I also tried out a few other ideas that had stuck in my brain recently.

Of course I can't remember where they came from anymore, but they were about recycling old Christmas cards. The first was to cut a pretty shape from an old card, glue it onto a small bunch of cinnamon sticks and hang it with ribbon. Easy Peasy.

Actually the reindeer was from a card-making kit and was already cut out. Even easier.

Then I tried the same idea with some buttons.

At the moment they are just decorating my fridge.

Along with idea number two. Which was to cut up bits of old cards and attach a magnet to the back. Now I don't have a lot of magnets lying around, and I didn't want to be wasteful. But then a light bulb appeared.

One seriously chopped up magnetic real estate agent calendar later...

The main red and white bits are these vinyl cutouts that Rhiannon brought along for cards, the penguin is from an old Christmas card, the porcupine is a button, and the shapes on the stocking are stickers. I wasn't sure the thin magnet would hold much stuff, but it's proving sufficient.

Sarah brought some scrapbooking stickers and they made great magnets too! Attach sticker to magnet, cut around, put on fridge. Genius.

Kitchen themed and all.

Then I was looking at my card-making stuff and found these old plastic butterflies I bought at some point for some reason.

This has the tinest bit of magnet attached to the middle and it still stays up.

And really, I have more than half of the calendar left. And that was just 2011! I'm never throwing magnetic junk mail away again!

Craft Challenge: Desk supplies tree topper

We discussed the idea of running some craft challenges. Then I put up the little Christmas tree at work, and it needed something for the top. Therefore, challenge 1: "make a tree-topper with things you have at your desk."

Here's mine, suitably themed for the maths staffroom:

I emailed it off to Rhiannon, and she responded with this index-card present:
 

Then I emailed our mother, and our stepfather came back with this penknife angel:

Join us! Make a tree topper with the stuff at your desk! We'd love to see what you come up with.

Sock Snowmen

Rhiannon and I feel very differently about Pinterest. This is why I love it - cute easy project ideas. And finding cool blogs or websites you otherwise wouldn't find. This sock snowman comes from the blog "Then She Made" and includes lots of nice pictures with the instructions.

It can be no-sew, and it can be very ethical/eco. If you have socks you don't want any more, buttons, ribbon or string, rubber bands and rice, you're there. In my case, I got rid of some knee socks that I've been keeping despite the fact they cut off circulation to my legs.

I have a few reservations about the rice. As you can see, all the rice creeps to the butt and stays there. Like all foods.

Also when you move him, his head lolls around in a disturbing way that makes me feel like someone will call the soft toy docs on me.

This second one I did with stuffing after a bit of rice at the bottom. The rice helps him sit up properly, but the stuffing stays where you tell it to.

My noses are made from bits of this orange twine that our cat net came wrapped in.

Bennie said he likes the mismatched but colour-coordinated buttons. "They look like homeless snowmen."

Post-Halloween Thoughts

My grand plans for an ethical and Australian Halloween didn't get as far off the ground as I'd hoped. But shifting my point of view did result in some changes and some fun crafts and foods, so I'm happy with how the holiday turned out.

When I was trying to pick a craft project for the party I focused my search on 'green', 'recycled' or 'ethical' Halloween crafts. This produced some great ideas, but I do have reservations.

Sometimes these craft projects are called "recycled" because they use one recycled item, but they require you to purchase new craft supplies to complete it.What I'm ideally looking for in a Halloween craft is something that uses as little new material as possible and can be appropriately gotten rid of afterwards - composted, recycled, eaten or returned to it's raw state. These pumpkins will be dinner by tomorrow night.

One that I liked the idea of was a Halloween flower centrepiece. Of course it's only 'green' because I already have fake flowers and some old fake bugs. But what I like is that the flowers can go back into my craft supplies, and the bugs can go back in the Halloween box in the shed. Nothing has actually been 'used up' for this decoration. And it was fun to do.

I didn't have that many bugs actually, and the flowers I had available we not so uniform or pale, so I couldn't aim for the same look. But I had lots of little skeleton hands for one thing.

And this worm that is really slimy to the touch. I like the idea that in their lifetime, this plastic crap will at least have seen a lot of Halloweens, and been used in a wide variety of ways.

Now it's time to start looking ahead to Christmas. Awesome.