Melted Snowman ornaments (tutorial.. sortof)

I have more to write to my "traditions" series.. I have Christmas to blog about and some home improvements to post on... but, time has escaped me lately.. that and some sickness in the family and well, blogging has taken a back seat.
It is not that I do not like to do it.. it is that with SO much to blog about I sit down overwhelmed and so, I quit.. yes, that is me, a quiter! Lol

Anyway...I would like to share some bulbs I made for family and friends over the Christmas season. I am only now posting this because I had to wait till the last of our family members received one.

They are.... THE MELTED SNOWMAN.
I seen these little guys on ... where else,  Pinterest. (can see the original here )

Here is MY version

Here are my supplies...

Orange play-doh  , peppercorn, a funnel for the salt, kosher salt (I added iridescent glitter to my salt, I thought this made it look more like real snow when it glistens), a clear bulb  and , not pictured... ribbon... for the scarf and the hanger.

First I rolled all the noses...The kids helped with this and thought this a LOT of fun.

We let the noses dry up. They were not 100% hard when we made ours but, you can do them a couple days ahead of time and make sure they are good and dry... I don't think it matters either way.

After that, I sort of quit taking pics.. we got into the groove of making them and I just didn't think to take pics... but here is what we did..

• First we added the salt via funnel to the bulb. I premixed the glitter and salt, I think this is probably the best idea..you do not want to add the glitter later in case you add too much. 
• Next dropped in the peppercorn. We eyeballed this. We decided 5-6 looked good for our bulbs but we used the smaller ones... bigger ones probably require more. Remember these are to represent the eyes and mouth so you want enough but not too much
• After adding the eyes we dropped in the nose.
• I took some old scrap fabric and frayed it to make it look like a scarf... I added it. 

After all of that we added the lid , cut some ribbon and there ya have it.. an adorable snowman...

The original did not call for the scarf or the glitter.. I just thought it made it more special but

they are SUPER cute without as well.

All in all these cost very little to make and made a huge impact. Everyone who received one LOVED them and I even had some people ask me to make them one when they seen other people receive them!

And, the kids and I just had a GREAT time making them.

These are DEFIANTLY worth archiving till next year if you are looking for something fun and inexpensive to make for gifts!

(oh and a side note.... in transfer sometimes the goodies inside would settle under the salt... if you just gently shake them, the goodies will come back to the top)

Mothers day project!

This year for my mother in law from the kids, I decided to have them make some homemade bath salts.... I thought they would enjoy making them and since she took baths, she also would enjoy recieving them. I found some directions from the internet and made them

our own...

First we started with some Epsom salt and three glass baby food jars.

then I poured epsom salt into each jar till they were full *so that I knew how much salt to color* and then poured them out equally onto 6 paper plates

After it was all equally *sortof* distributed... we started to dye it with food coloring.

After that, we added some vanilla extract to make them smell PERTY. (they not only smelled pretty but they smelled DELICIOUS too)

Then it was time to pour in the salt... we did hte layer effect.. here is Kaleb layering his.

the jars after they were finished layering.... They each did these on their own.. chose what colors and poured it in...

Anna chose to do a "Rainbow" she did the colors in order of a rainbow... coarse its kinda hard to tell.

Gabriels is super cute too.. I was impressed with how well they did actually.

Kaleb wouldnt put his down so I could take a picture.. he was WAY to proud.. so here he is posing with his.

After that it was time to cover the tops.. the directions that I had read called for fabric, but I had none to match these colorful jars... it then dawned on me to take coffee filters and let the kids go crazy with some markers.... so that is what we did for the tops.. here are the finished products.. I am pleased, I think they turned out SO cute.