Smiley Sock Snowmen

We have written on our Christmas countdown activity garland that we will build a snowman. Construction materials are unspecified, but I have somehow assumed that it would be made out of real snow. However, the couple of snowy sprinklings we have experienced here in Edinburgh have not been quite enough for that. There have been sub-zero temperatures and clear crisp blue skies lately, which has been lovely for hanging out. But we haven't seen the thick layer of beautifully sparkly snow we need to build a snowman in our diminutive garden. So today, having stumbled upon this post by House of Hodge Podge, I decided we would make our snowmen out of s...ocks.

First, we took some white baby socks, which Lilo has grown out off, and we filled them with a couple of tablespoons of rice. A lot of it went on the floor, some of it was munched and crunched throughout the activity.

Filling the toe of the sock with rice

We then filled the sock with polyester stuffing, up to the bottom of the ribbed top.

Ju is trying to work out how to keep the sock open while getting the stuffing in

We have to push the stuffing down so as to leave room for the hat

We then rolled the hat down and put a rubber band around the neck to form the head and the body.

The snowman is taking shape

The boys then wrapped a thick pipe cleaner around the neck to make a scarf, and glued some googly eyes and an orange foam triangle to make a carrot nose.

Snowman's scarf, eyes and nose

I then realised we must have missed out a crucial step, as I could see the stuffing at the top of the hat. Oops! Re-read the instructions, un-rolled the hat and tied a knot at the top of the head (or base of the hat) with a piece of wool. No harm done. Phew!

We tie a knot to create the hat

Ju drew smiles with a black marker to cheer up both snowmen.

Cheer up, snowman!

 Both boys enjoyed gluing mini pompoms to make buttons and a large pompom on top of the hat to make a bauble.

Pompom buttons

Lilo focuses on the hat bauble

The finished snowmen look very expressive due to their googly eyes and the boys enjoyed playing with them while I was getting their lunch ready.

"Where do snowmen go to dance?"
"Snowballs!"

Ju put his snowman on a bed of snow made from leftover polyester stuffing, and our joky snowmen even had a snowball fight with cotton wool snowballs.

Ju's snowman enjoys chilling in the snow