Snowman Family
This project was made as a prize at our annual Holiday Fair to raise funds for our local nursing home.
Step 1, has the instructions for crocheting the different sizes plastic juice Bottles. Fiber fill stuffing was used to shape the snowmen. Pictures are shown at the bottom of the instructions. Crochet Styrofoam heads were hot gluded onto bottle opening. Arms were simple crochet tubes filled with fiberfill. Hats and scarfs were knitted to fit all the different sizes, and single crochet circles made the charcoal buttons. Black buttons were used for the eyes, but store bought eyes work well too. Snowmen noses were plastic carrots which were available in the stores at Easter time. You can also crochet the nose, if you can't find it in the stores. Mouths were cut from felt. The shovel was bought in a craft store. The Snowmen were hot glued onto a plywood board that was covered with white felt. Xmas trims were added, such as empty wrapped boxes, dollar store small tree was decorated with odds and ends, and plastic beads were used for the outline trim on the board.
Step 2, gives instructions for the Snowman hat which was made out of stiff black felt. Pictures are show at the bottom of the instructions.

Step 1: Crochet Instructions for Plastic Bottles

Crochet Instructions;
First collect different size plastic juice bottles, plastic snack barrels, or plastic fruit jars. Choose which ones make better snowman mother, father, brother, sister, baby, etc. Buy different styrofoam balls and choose which ones fit better on each bottle. Push the styrofoam balls onto the bottle openings. Hot glue the balls to the bottles at this time.
For the crochet with a J or H hook, start with about 4 or 5 chains and then join to form a small circle. Continue with a simple half double crochet stitch 2 times in each chain stitch. Place it around the styrofoam ball and increase as you go around. Once you get to the center of the ball, start your decrease so that the crochet is nice and tight around the ball. Stop at the neck of the bottle. Leave a yarn tail to reinforce crochet around the neck and connect head to body crochet later. Next start the crochet at the bottom of the bottle the same way and fill in with stuffing or fiberfill as you go to shape snowman. The yarn will stretch so you can add as much stuffing as you like. Start to decrease the crochet as you move closer to the top. To end, weave the yarn tail from the head together to the bottom crochet. This reinforces the snowman as one piece and it won't come apart. (This is very good if you are making only one snowman, because the instinct is to pick it up by the neck or head.)

Step 2: Black Felt Hat Instructions

Black Felt Hat Instructions
First buy stiff black felt which comes in squares. Since all my snowmen are different sizes, I measure the black felt around the styrofoam head so I can get an idea of how big and how high I need to cut my felt. I then cut the long rectagluar piece first. I then use a paper plate the same way on top of the styrofoam ball to estimate the size I need for the brim, and I cut out the circle using the paper plate as my guide. Next, hot glue the rectangle ends together and place tube on the center of the circle (brim). When glue cools, pick up and cut out the center of the circle using the tube space as you guide (a small curved sissor works great for this). Next step is the top of the hat. Place the opening of the tube (not the brim) onto the remainder of the black felt and hot glue around it. This will give you a perfect fit to the top of the hat. After the glue cools, cut away any excess felt or too much glue.
Next, hot glue the ribbon all around the hat. Then add snow glitter to the hat, to hide any large areas that show up where you used the hot glue. To finish up, add holiday leaves and trims.