So for this DIY, the idea came from a FB group I’m a member of: The Best Ideas for Kids. Basically they are doing a six week holiday craft challenge and I signed up for it. So this challenge was from the week of November 25.
Check out the DIY below.
Supplies: 6″ paper lantern, 8″ paper lantern, black acrylic paint, 5 wooden “buttons” (you can use actual buttons but I did not have enough on hand), I used a template from the Hefalump trunk as my carrot nose, 1.5″ tissue circles, glue mixtures (1 part school glue and 1 part water), paint brush, ribbon (I ended up using a different ribbon than the light purple one shown above, hot glue (not shown), fairy lights (not shown), Swarovski crystals for the smile (not shown), Swarovski crystals for the eyes (not shown), string or yarn to hang the lanterns while they dry, painters tape (not shown), glitter (optional), Q-tips (optional)
Put together the lantern. If you do not do know how to do that, check out the beginning of this tutorial to see the steps: PLC Kit: Back Strip Bird. Once done, you can tie a little bit of string the top of the lantern. Tuck in the ends inside the lanterns for the next few steps.
Paint an area slightly larger than the tissue circles with the glue mixture. Start at the bottom of the lantern,
Place the first circle so that it overlaps the bottom of the lantern as shown above.
Repeat the process for the second circle. Make sure the second circle overlaps the first circle.
Continue adhering the circles making sure to place the circle past the edges of the lantern, both on the bottom and the top.
All done. Hang the lantern to dry. If you applied a lot of glue, I recommend putting a piece of scrap paper so that any glue drips land on the paper.
Repeat the process with the second lantern. Hang to dry once done.
To paint the buttons, I decided that the easiest way to do this was to stick the buttons on scrap paper. I did that by using painters tape rolled up.
Now it is painting time. I painted the tops and sides of the buttons.
I allowed the buttons to dry.
Once dry, I painted the inside of the button with a little bit of glue.
Sprinkled a little bit of glitter into the cavity. Move the glitter around to make sure to coat the inside bottom and sides. Once happy, tap the excess glitter out and set aside to dry. Repeat with the remaining buttons.
Now to make the carrot nose, you can free hand it or use this template. Print this on orange cardstock and cut it out. Because it is a small piece of paper, I always recommend using a cylindrical object to help roll the paper. This prevents getting sharp creases in the nose. For my part, I used the handle part of a foam brush.
Then I added glue to the inside edge of the long side.
I carefully rolled the nose into a cylinder and used some no teeth hair clips to hold the shape in place until set.
By now, the first paper lantern had dried. I added a dab of glue on a Q-tip and applied it to the inside of all the tissue circles that overlapped the top and bottom of the lantern edges
Then press the circles to the inside of the lantern. Repeat on the top and bottom of both lanterns. I like to do this because it gives a nice clean edge. Optionally, you could just cut the overlapped circles edges.
All done. Now time to put snowman together.
Before I started glueing the S Man together, I put the two lanterns together to see the best placement. Then I put a ring of glue around the bottom lantern.
Place the two lanterns together and held them until the glue set.
I also ended up with a coupla areas that needed additional glue support so that the head did not wobble or break off, so I added a little more glue to those areas.
Next step was adding the buttons.
Then I used a saucer sized paper plate to decide the placement of the smile Swarovski crystals.
I guesstimated placement placed roughly 1/2 inch apart.
A jeweled smile. My S-Man is very happy. It kinda reminds me of those diamond teeth braces that were so popular several years ago. 🙂
Carrot nose time. Fold the bottom ends in as shown above. Feel free to include a few more cuts to the fold line to make sure the bottom lies flat. Add a dab of hot glue to hold the folded edges in place. Then add more glue over the now flatted bottom …
And quickly place it above the smile and hold in place until it sets
Add the eyes and then on last step.
For the scarf, I decided at the last minute to change from the lavender one shown in the supplies photo to this one: a grosgrain ribbon with orange, blue, green and dark blue strips.
The S-Man is all done.
I also decided to throw in some fairy lights to see how he would look.
