Character Gift Tags

 I felt like adding some personality to my gift wrapping so I decided to make these fun character gift tags. All I needed was some coloured paper/card and a glue stick.

To make the snowman I cut out a gift tag shape from white card. I cut two rough circles for the eyes out of black paper and five smaller circles for the mouth. I glued everything in place and added an orange triangle for the classic carrot nose.

For the Santa belt I cut a gift tag shape out of red card. I cut a strip of white paper with torn edges for the fur trim, which I stuck down first. I then added a strip of black paper for the belt, with a yellow square and black square on top for the buckle.

For the Rudolph tag I cut two gift tag shapes, one brown and one white, and sandwiched the paper antlers between them. I cut a large tan oval for the mouth and added Rudolph's signature red nose on top. I then used black and white card for the other facial features.

 Once I'd added some matching string through a hole in the top of the tags they were done.

There were really simple to make and I'm already thinking what other characters I could create in gift tag form.

Crochet Pikachu Pot

With craft fair season in full swing I've been adding a few more things to my stock. These character pots have been going down quite well so I've made a few more.

In order to stay on trend and 'down with the kids' I made a Pikachu one, since the Pikachu toy we made sold straight away.

In fact I made two! We've been selling these pots with socks in and with sweets in. You can guess which has been more popular with children.

I also had a blank white crochet pot that my Mum made so I thought it would be perfect as a snowman. Tis the season after all. So this guy is roughly based on Olaf; everyone's favourite snowman. Or would that be Frosty the Snowman? Or the snowman from The Snowman?

Candy Cane Holders

Since I have a lot of candy canes around from the candy cane horses I thought I'd try and make something else with them. I remembered seeing something on Pinterest where a character is holding the candy cane so I went with that.

These were pretty easy to make. I sewed the face on a piece of felt first, then made the additional parts, like Rudolph's ears and antlers, and then I sewed the two pieces of felt together adding in two loops of felt to be the hands holding the candy cane.

How cute would these little guys be hanging on a Christmas tree?

Crochet Olaf

Since the crochet Minions my Mum and I have been making are proving quite popular (we've already sold 12 to my sister's friends) we thought about what else might go down well, and it was pretty obvious; Frozen!

Fun fact: I only watched it for the first time this summer #latetotheparty

So my Mum looked around for an Olaf pattern and adapted what she found slightly. 

Then it was my job to make the mouth, eyes and nose out of felt.

And sew on some eyebrows. They really make all the difference.

Christmas Pom-Poms

Apologies to those who think it's too soon to be thinking about Christmas, but for those of us with festive craft fairs coming up we have to. But to be honest I probably would be getting excited already without the craft fair excuse.

My Mum recently went to Kirstie Allsopp's Handmade Craft Fair where she purchased a pom-pom maker. To try it out she made these guys.

I just happened to have the right sized mini red pom-poms to be the holly berries on this pom-pom Christmas pudding. I glued them to the top along with some holly leaves cut out of green felt.

The snowman is two white pom-poms attached to each other with little black beads for the eyes. My Mum even crocheted a tiny hat and scarf for him!

I attached some white thread coming out of the hat so this little guy can be hung on a Christmas tree.

Do you think he needs any other facial/snowman features, or are the eyes enough?

Kid's Craft: Model Olaf

The summer holidays mean the start of the children's art workshops at the Letchworth Arts Centre and the first week is Frozen themed. Note: I did not pick the theme.

The first activity was making a posable Olaf out of tissue paper covered polystyrene balls with wire running through them.

Pipe cleaner arms, rolled up paper for the nose, black paper for the mouth, googly eyes and paper eyebrows which make him look both excited and terrified. Excitified.

To extend the activity the children also made winter scenes in a box for their Olaf figure to fit in to.

I love what they came up with.

Snowman Cookies

When I saw the melted snowman cookies on Crazy Domestic I had to make some myself.

I used a general sugar cookie recipe from a random book and then decorated with icing for the snow and a marshmallow for the head. I added the scarf, buttons and arms with tube icing but this wouldn't stick to the marshmallows so for the eyes I dipped a cocktail stick in some black food colouring.

Though it's not a requirement, I suggest decorating the cookies, or any kind of Christmas cookies, whilst wearing Christmas/winter pyjamas. It just adds to the whole experience.

My friends thought it was a bit mean to eat these poor little snowman but they soon came around once they discovered how delicious they were.

Om and nom!

Also, my bottle top Christmas tree project has been featured in a Kids Christmas Craft e-book which you can view here on All Free Holiday Crafts. Exciting!

Frosty got nothin' on these

The snow that we had over December, which has just about melted, wasn't very good for building snowmen. So here's a look back at what I did with better snow over the years.

A classic little snowman complete with scarf and buttons.

My friends and I came up with this snow-woman on a snow day in 2007. 

And the next year I made this sitting down snowman.

Have any of you created less than traditional snowmen? How about an igloo?