Tin Can Snowman by Practically Functional {guest tutorial}

*Hey everybody! Season 14 of So You Think You’re Crafty is going to be fantastic. However, it won’t be starting until the New Year – we decided to let the crafters have a little break and family time too    . But I have a great schedule of guest posts and shop spotlights lined up from now until then. Have a great Holiday season and see you all after the New Year!*

Hey there  So You Think You’re Crafty  readers! I’m really excited to be guest posting here today! I’ll be sharing a super cute, super simple Christmas craft with you: a tin can snowman!

First, let me introduce myself. I’m Jessi, and I blog at  Practically Functional, where I share my practical attempts at Domestic Goddessery. I love crafting, organizing, gardening, cooking, and all things DIY. I’m no professional crafter, but as long as I can fit a project into a weekend, I’m willing to try anything!

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I can start decorating for Christmas without feeling bad! 🙂

This craft is super simple to make, and way cute, plus it’s a great way to recycle a couple of tin cans! When my husband was a kid, his mom made Christmas decorations out of tin cans all the time, so I figured I’d try my hand at a tin can snowman this year.

DIY Tin Can Snowman

Here’s what you need:

• 3 empty tin cans in varying sizes
• paint (white for the body, pink for the cheeks)
• buttons (enough for the eyes, nose, mouth, and body)
• twigs or thick floral wire for the arms
• black felt for the hat
• Christmas fabric and  embellishments for the scarf
• hot glue
• paintbrush

Start by painting all of your cans white. I used spray paint and it was quick and covered well, but regular paint with a paintbrush will work just fine too.

Note: Since your tin cans are empty (they are empty, right?!), you have one open side and one closed side. Make sure to paint the entire outside of the can, including that closed bottom part.

The Head

Start with the smallest can; this will be the head. Grab whatever buttons you’re going to use for the eyes, nose, and mouth, and plug in your hot glue gun.

Look how cute that little carrot nose button is! I’m so glad I stopped by the button aisle the last time I was at Joann’s. 🙂

Turn your tin can upside-down so the opening is on the bottom. Using hot glue, attach the eyes, nose, and mouth. Once the glue is dry, paint on small pink circles above the mouth to make cheeks.

The Arms

The floral wire I used already looked fairly twig-like, but I wanted to give my snowman “fingers”. I used wire cutters to cut a few bits off the end of the wire, and then used hot glue to re-attach them near the end of the wire.

The Body

The other two cans are going to be the body of the snowman. I started by attaching a few more buttons for the snowman’s coat. I put three on the middle-sized can and two up near the top of the largest can. (Again, make sure the openings face down before you start gluing things!)

Next I drilled holes on either side of the middle-sized can for the arms. I was a bit worried I would smush the can by drilling the holes, but if you’re using tin cans, they seem to be strong enough to withstand a bit of pressure from the drill. Don’t worry if the hole you drill is bigger than the arms; you can fill it with hot glue later.

Stick the arms in through the hole and adjust their length as necessary. Bend the other end of the wire flat against the inside of the can and hot glue it in place.

Once the glue is dry you can bend the arms to whatever shape you’d like.

The Hat

To make the hat, cut out two circles from the black felt, one larger one for the brim and one smaller one for the top. (You can also just cut one large circle and then cut the smaller circle out from the inside.) You also need a rectangle of felt to give the hat it’s height.

I folded up some printer paper into a ring, and glued the rectangle of felt to the outside of it to give the hat some strength.

Once you have a ring of felt, glue the top of the hat to the top of the ring, and glue the brim to the bottom.

Putting It All Together

All that’s left is to assemble the tin can snowman, attach the hat, and put a scarf on it! Glue the tin cans together, making sure to line up the coat buttons and the face buttons. I put a thin bead of hot glue around the edges of the cans. It turned sorta yellow-ish, so once the glue was dry I painted it with some white paint. 🙂

Use a bit more hot glue to attach the hat. I attached mine at a jaunty angle, cuz look how cute that is!

Once the glue (and paint) is dry, cut a long thin rectangle of fabric for the scarf. Wrap the scarf around the tin can snowman’s neck and tie it. The scarf sat weird when I did this (it stood up completely flat against the top can, covering the snowman’s mouth) so I used a few dabs of hot glue to hold it down over the shoulders, giving it a permanent “ruffled” look.

I sewed on a few jingle bells as a little  embellishment, and voila! Adorable tin can snowman!

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial; I’m glad to finally get started on some Christmas decorations. The only other Christmas-y thing I’ve managed to do so far this year is whip up a few little cat collars so our cats can get in the spirit too. 🙂

I have a couple other Christmas crafts in my archives (like the Advent Calendar I made last year and the wedding invitation ornaments  I put together for the weddings we went to this fall), but  I really need to get started decorating for Christmas this year. Yikes!

Thanks a ton to Missy for letting me guest post today, I hope you guys enjoyed the tin can snowman craft! Feel free to stop by and visit me at  Practically Functional  anytime!

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