Snowman Advent Garland

Hi everybody.

Snowmen Advent Garland

Today I have a fun project to share with all of you. It's one of those projects that you "ohh" and "ahhh" over on Pinterest.... well, I created it and I just LOVE how it turned out. My two sons are excited to see December 1st arrive so we can start using it too. :)

So I started this project by purchasing some 2" vending machine capsules. While you can go and throw a bunch of quarters at one of those .50c vending machines, my way is cheaper. :) I bought these through an Ebay listing here:

This was the ONLY Ebay store I found that lets you choose your cap colors and the listing was for 25 capsules which is exactly how many I needed for this project. Perfect, right? :) I chose 1/2 red and 1/2 green caps. The caps become the hats for the little snowpeople. 

I started off prepping all the little clear capsules by spraying them with two coats of Valspar's Plastic Primer. This helps the paint stick without peeling, cracking or flaking. If you've ever spray painted plastic that flexes (like these little guys will when you open to fill or reveal the daily surprise will), you'll know how important this step is. 

Alternatively, you can fill the little capsules with shredded white paper if you want to skip the painting all together. It's really up to you, but I had the paint on hand and I thought it would make a much nicer finished project that can be used for years to come.

Next, I added two coats of flat white Valspar spray paint. Make sure you get down to the edges. I love Valspar brand paint because it coats well and doesn't drip like the cheap kinds. :)

While all that paint is drying, you can move onto the next step.

I used my drill gun and added two holes to the top of each cap / snowman hat. I used about an 1/8" drill bit, but it really depends on the ribbon you plan to string the garland onto. If you'd like, you can just use little wire ties to add these little caps to a garland you already have. That would look super cute too. 

I used a large eyed (embroidery style) needle to string my caps onto my 5/8" satin ribbon. I just alternated the colors to form the pattern. Super easy. :)

Okay, next I added Pom-Poms (bought at Dollar Tree) to the tops using hot glue. I added a dot of glue to the center of each cap and placed the pom-pom into the glue. Avoid gluing the pom-pom onto the ribbon. If you glue the pom-pom to just the cap top, the little snowmen can be slid on the garland if need be. 

See, they sure are starting to look like little hats now. Don't you think? 

When the painted capsules are all dry, I used black Tulip puffy paint to add the little faces, two larger dots for the eyes and five little dots for the mouth. I also added the numbers to the back of the snowman heads (but forgot to take a pic, sorry).

While I painted faces, my boys were trimming out simple snowman noses from scraps of orange felt. We applied them to the faces with a little dot of hot glue. Almost done. :)

The last few steps are easy... put your prizes, candies, slips of paper with holiday activities printed on them, etc into the capsules and snap them to the lids/hats. If you need more/less room between them, slid the snowmen on the garland. 

My boys wanted jingle bells on the garland, so we added them by tying them on using a little green sheer ribbon. These little bells will slide as well.

Don't you just love this little snowman face??? So cute but so simple too.

And here is our little sting of happy snowmen. Just awaiting their special day. :)

Here is a shot of the back of our snowmen. I used the same black Tulip Puffy paint to hand-draw the numbers. If you have a die-cut machine, you could use vinyl to add the numbers, but I loved the ease of adding these while I was drawing the faces anyway.

Please feel free to share this project. I am Pinning it using Pinterest here:

And here is my Pinterest.