Melt Free Snowball Tutorial

When we were snowed for 3 days the other week one of the projects I worked on was making snowballs for my apothecary jar.  I usually keep this jar on my mantle, but at Christmas I put in my hutch in the dining room with ornaments in it.  I really like how it looked and decided I wanted to keep it there, but it needed something that would go with the wintry theme I was using in that room.  This is what I came up with, it is very simple and you can too can have melt free snowballs. 

Let's get started.....

What you will need: 

Mod Podge,

Empsom Salt,

Iridescent Glitter,

Styrofoam Balls

Light Blue Acrylic Paint (optional)

Skewers

Bowl

Rice

What to do: 

1.  Insert skewer into styrofoam ball.  This makes it easier to handle while coating with mod podge or painting. 

2.  Coat the styrofoam ball with mod podge-be generous.  While still wet sprinkle with glitter or Epsom Salt.  I did some of both.  I also painted a few of the balls with light blue paint.  Let the paint dry and coat in mod podge and sprinkle with glitter. 

3.  Let dry overnight.  I put the skewers with the balls on them in a bowl of uncooked rice.

4.  When dry place in your apothecary jar.  Now step back and admire your handiwork.

Hope you enjoy.  If you should decide to try this little craft I would love to see your pictures.

I'm Late, I'm Late....

This seems to be the story of my blog life.  I have really good intentions of posting everyday, but then life gets in the way and I end up posting late.  Anyway since it has been 2 whole months since I lasted posted we have celebrated A Very Grinchy 5th Birthday, Christmas, New Years and had 3 winter weather events-one of which shut the city down for a week!  I also completed a couple of projects I have been wanting to do for a while. This post is going to be picture heavy because I am trying to catch up, so here goes.

The birthday girl

Posing with the inspiration for the party theme.

We watched this.

Everyone came dressed in their favorite p.j.'s.

The birthday cupcake.  It was tie-dyed!

Checking out the gifts.

It helps to get a really BIG breath when blowing out the candle.

Success!!

Baking cookies for Santa. 

Sitting in the manager at church.

I made these really cute outfits for them to wear Christmas Eve.  Of course they make them even cuter.

Who could resist this face?

She couldn't figure out why Santa had brought her this.  Her exact quote:  I think Santa got confused; I'm a girl not a boy.

Christmas morning aftermath!!!

Got the one gift we really, really wanted....

A Pillow Pet!!

Building castles with Papa.

Some of my favorite faces.

A rare Christmas Day snow.

We caught snowflakes on our tongues.

And made snow hand prints.

Isn't this pretty?  It snowed all day and most of the night.

We spent a very quite evening at home on New Year's Eve and watched lots of football on New Year's Day.  Consequently there are no pictures, however January came in like a lion and left all of this the 2nd week of the month.

The lower part of the hill across from our house.

Looking down the street from our front porch.

This is our patio.  Notice how the snow piled up on the table.

There is a patio somewhere under there.

My little flower bed in the back.  The plant in the front is mint.  It was nice and green and full just before Christmas when the first winter weather event (as we like to call them) hit.

The road in front of our house.  The storm hit on Sunday and it still looked like this on Wednesday.  Took it a full week to melt.

Traffic on 575S on Wednesday morning.  As you can tell the roads are not in great shape.

On the way home. 

I'm not kidding when I say the city was shut down for a week.  We missed 3 days of work and the schools were out all week.  Things really didn't start to get back to normal until the weekend.  This is one Southern girl who will be glad when winter is over.  Can't wait for the 90 degree temperatures and high humidity!

What Happens When You Let A 2 Year Old Hold The Camera

What Did You Do With Your Weekend?

I was supposed to be a vendor at the Woodstock Market and Show last weekend.  It is a local show that I do the first weekend of each month.  The only challenge is it is held outside in the parking lot of the former Wal Mart building.  Usually I love being outside, but when the weather report was calling for 10-25 mph winds and temps. in the high 40's - low 50's I wimped out and decided to not do the show.  I really hated not being there because it is my favorite event.  I absolutely love the people that put it on and have made some great friends over the last year. 

Since the weather was so lousy on Friday and Saturday I took advantage of having to be indoors and got caught up on embroidery orders and some projects I have been wanting to do for a while.

Ever since I saw this project here http://www.graceviolet.com/2010/08/lunch-tote.html I have been wanting to do something similar.  Well we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast on Saturday morning and guess what found....reusable shopping bags with the perfect print for Thanksgiving. 

I thought they would make cute pillows for the bench on my front porch.  They were really simple to make.  All I did was cut the panels off along the sides, bottoms and cut the tops off.  Then I just stuffed them and this is what I ended up with.

They work perfect with the fall display on the front porch.  I need to take a picture of that to show you before the Christmas decorations go up next week.

These are just two of the orders we worked on.   We had pillows, towels, market baskets, sweatshirts, blankets and more to finish.  Several of the items are for Christmas presents and I don't want to give away any of the secrets so I will have to show those a little later. 

I also played around with this.  It's not finished yet, but when it is I will post pictures.  I have a few more ideas of what I want to do with it.

I also made some more of these to go with their Christmas outfits. 

Then went shopping with these cuties.

Hope you had a great weekend too.