Pumpkin Snowmen and Santa Claus

If you are like the many who love to decorate their yards for Fall with pumpkins, scarecrows and the likes, you have an abundance of pumpkins left over after the season. The pumpkins can be put to use in cooking or craft projects. You can have great fun creating snowmen and Santa Claus from the leftover pumpkins. Children, even the smaller ones, can help participate in these relatively easy projects with the help of Mom or Dad and will take great pride in seeing these projects used as indoor Christmas decorations. They can be used as dinner table centerpieces or table decorations in the living room or den. Your guests will love them too! Below are directions both for creating snowmen and for creating a Santa Clause from pumpkins.

Snowmen

To create a snowman you will need the following items:

Pumpkin
White acrylic paint
White Styrofoam balls, found at craft stores
Black felt
Red felt
Orange felt
Black buttons of two different sizes
Twigs (for arms)
Hot glue gun
Plain white poster board
Ice glitter and spray adhesive (optional)
Scissors

Directions:

Begin by painting the entire pumpkin with white acrylic paint. Acrylic paint dries fast. Once it has dried, use the hot glue gun to attach a white Styrofoam ball smaller than the pumpkin to the top of the pumpkin.

Optional: If you want the snowman to have the sparkly look of ice now is the time to spray a coat of adhesive to the pumpkin and Styrofoam ball and sprinkle both with clear ice glitter.

Create the snowman's eyes by gluing two of the larger size black buttons onto the Styrofoam ball. Cut an orange triangle of felt and roll it into a cone shape for the carrot nose and using the glue gun, glue the end of the felt in place to keep the cone shape. Then use the glue gun to hot glue the nose onto the Styrofoam head. Next, hot glue a few of the smaller black buttons in a row onto the Styrofoam head for the mouth below the carrot nose, slightly curving the mouth into a smile.

Create a red scarf by cutting a rectangle from the red felt and hot glue it around the neck between the pumpkin and Styrofoam ball. Use scissors to cut a fringe look on both ends of the scarf.

To create the snowman's top hat, first cut out a circle from the black felt large enough to be the base of the hat including the brim. A salad plate or bowl will work as a guide and you can draw the circle to cut out onto the felt with a white tracing pen found in sewing

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