Sparkles Everywhere

As promised, here is the other snowman box I created.

I like this guy much better, his head is better proportioned with his body... I used an old wool sweater that I felted for his top hat and scarf.

For the tree, I used silver pipe cleaners to acheive a vintage tinsel look. It's a lot of fun playing with this Fast Mache' stuff. I even have a few more things drying right now. I hope to buy some Celluclay which Lori recommended using for the snowman. Hopefully my craft store will get some in soon...Don't forget to stop by the Joli Paquet blog. There are a few more fun tutorials already posted that I can wait to try. Oh, and they will be selling some kits this week too!

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Besides making snowmen, I been working on a cardboard Christmas town.

I've always been inspired by old Putz houses. I love this picture I found in my Grandparents photo album. A little hard to see, but if you look closely at the mantel, you can see Mrs. Ekblads beautiful display of Putz houses, bottle brush trees, celluloid Santa and reindeers. I tried to find a picture of my Grandma's Christmas mantel because she decorated her's very similar.

I just love pictures from the 40's!!!

I decided to try and make my own "Putz" like snow town this year. I found a couple unfinished cardboard ornaments at the craft store to play with and this is how they turned out. I started by painting them my favorite non-traditional Christmas colors. I then built the base platform for each out of cardboard from cereal boxes. I used cereal box cardboard to construct some fences too. After I added some bottlebrush trees I covered each piece entirely with mica flakes. You can never have enough sparkle!!! I really love all the new fancy cardboard houses that are out on the market, I especially love the ones by Cody Foster, they are truly delightful! I just don't have the budget to spend $50 to $100 on one, so for $1.99 I created my own. I think they'll be just fine...