Waltzingmouse Twelve Days of Christmas

ETA: I created the hat from paper. Added some more details to step 6

Hi there! I am pleased to be your hostess this morning for Day 5 of the Twelve Days of Christmas, Waltzingmouse Style! Be sure to check out the WMS Blog for the past few days and for the upcoming days!

Normally at this time we would be previewing new stamp sets for release. However, this month WMS is taking a break from releasing new stamps to allow us (all!) to enjoy the holidays with family and friends, as well as to focus on some fantastic things happening behind-the-scenes! It is all very exciting, and we appreciate your enthusiasm!

In lieu of a release this month, we are instead coming together to bring you some ideas and inspiration for holiday crafting (and beyond) which we are calling the Twelve Days of Christmas, Waltzingmouse Style! Each day will showcase a different Design Team member, so be sure to check the WMS Blog daily through December 17th for the links.

So on the 5th day of Christmas, I present a fun little gift for your friends, family and neighbors.

I present to you snowmen spa tubes. :) They're something you can make for the young at heart or even let the little ones help. I know most of us are super busy around this time so I wanted to create something relatively easy to mass produce as well.

I filled some test tubes with bath salts -- after the stressful holidays, the recipient can relax in their own tub. To make the tubes festive, I decided to make my tube a snowman. And what snowman can go to his new home without a snazzy carrier?

Just because I used bath salts, doesn't mean you have to -- you can really fill it with anything. You can fill it with hot cocoa, bath salts, jelly beans, nuts, the list goes on. Since it's chilly outside, I made some hot cocoa ones (layers of hot cocoa, chocolate chips and marshmallows) as well - yum!

I took some pictures while making this little snowmen in case you'd like to try them as well.

1. Gather your supplies.

• Test Tube(s) - Mine are 6 inches with a 1 inch diameter that I got from Etsy (In the Clear).
• Gems
• Ribbon
• Adhesive

2. (Optional) Color your gems. I don't have black gems so I used a Sharpie marker to color my gems black.

3. Adhere gems to your test tube (which I had already filled with bath salts (so you can see the gems)

4. Cut and color your snowman nose. I used the end of a wooden skewer which I made my husband saw for me which then caused him to curse all things craft as he hurt his finger. Carrie told me that I should have used garden shears instead (if only we owned such things).

5. Tie ribbon around snowman. You can see right now that one end sticks up...

6. With a glue dot, adhere the ribbon down. Finish decorating the snowman as you see fit.
For the hat, I wrapped a thin strip of black paper around the tube. The hat lid is created by creating a ring with my circle punches (outer diameter is 1 3/8 inch and the inner diameter is 1 1/8).

If you run out of time, you could just tie a tag to the snowman's scarf and stop here.

7. Create box. Cut a 8.5" by 5" cardstock. (This means you can create 2 boxes with one piece of cardstock). Place it in the landscape direction and score at 1.5", 3.5", 5", and 7".

8. Turn it in the portrait direction and score at 1.5" and 3.5".

9. Make 1.5" cuts from the top of the page and from the bottom.

10. Use the nesties to cut a circle.

11. Assemble the box. Cut two 2" by 8.5" pieces of acrylic cardstock for the sides of the holder. I used the SU! word window punch to punch handles for my holder, scored my acrylic sheet one end at the 2 inch mark (for the base) and the at the other end at the 1 3/4 inch mark and the 2 3/4 inch mark.

12. Decorate your box as you see fit and place your snowman in. For the box, I stamped the pattern from Pic-Nic Patterns and created a simple little band with the let it snow sentiment from Compliments of the Season. I created a little tag for the top and tied it with a bit of silver twine.

Hope you enjoyed the 5th day of the Twelve Days of WMS Christmas. Thanks for stopping by!


Stamps: (Compliments of the Season, Pic-Nic Patterns, Half Baked, Around Christmastime )
Accents: (gems) Hero Arts
Fibers: (ribbon) Craft Supply, (silver twine) Jewelry Essentials
Tools: (Word Window Punch) SU!, (circle die) Spellbinders
Other: (tubes) In the Clear Etsy Shop, (skewers)