Recently I converted a bunch of my wood mounted stamps to clear mounted stamps. During the process I started to wonder what I was going to do with all the leftover used wood blocks? Stampers never throw anything away.
I thought about making some kind of decorative piece for my craft room and so I researched on Pinterest and came up with this adorable snowman (see photo below that inspired this project).
First, I cleaned up the blocks by removing any leftover foam (heat the block with your heat gun for 2 seconds and the foam peels right off). Then I looked through my pile of leftover blocks and picked out 4 blocks... two large ones for the body, one for the head and one for the top hat. I wanted a tiered snowman.
I measured the blocks and cut pieces of white card stock accordingly and wrapped the blocks and secured with red sticky tape.
Since the blocks are tiered, I had to cover the top of the blocks so I glued the block down onto a strip of white scrap paper using the Tombow Liquid Glue (green bottle). After the glue dried, I trimmed around the edges.
After all the white blocks were wrapped and covered, I stacked them to see how they would look and then I glued them all together (all block except the black top hat).
Then it was time to make the top hat. I measured and cut a piece of black card stock and wrapped the block. Then I cut a piece of black card stock for the rim (cut the piece a little bigger than the block and I rounded the corners). I glued the black block on top of the rim piece and added my ribbon and flower. I also added a little dimension to make the hat look worn by sponging white craft ink around the edges.
The eyes and buttons were all done with black card stock and circle punches. The nose was cut free hand using Pumpkin Pie card stock and I sponged the edges. I used Bird Builder and Itty Bitty Accents Punches to make the flower. I drew the mouth free hand and I added the Real Red stripped ribbon. I popped up the eyes, buttons and nose with Dimensionals.
I felt the snowman needed a base or stand to keep him steady so I used a piece of cardboard that comes with every 12 x 12 DSP pack (the back piece that is sturdy). I cut the piece just a little bigger than the block and rounded the corners to match the blocks and the hat. If you don't have any cardboard, you can cut out 3 pieces of regular card stock and glue them together for a sturdy base. Just make sure all 3 are exactly the same measurement.
Finally, I sponged all the white edges with gold craft ink to give the snowman more dimension. I'm sure you can use Crumb Cake ink if you don't have gold and it will give you the same results.
I found this picture of snowmen on Pinterest which was the inspiration for my creation.
