Sometimes crafting doesn’t go as planned and turns into chaos. This is my story of a chaotic and stressful crafting experience. So, without further ado, grab a favorite beverage, put your feet up and read my experience. Truly, in this instance, do as I say, not as I did! ha! 

It started with a YouTube Christmas “dupe” video for Pottery Barn inspiration. I don’t normally shop at Pottery Barn, and when I think it over, I have only visited this store a handful of times. Mainly because there isn’t one close to where I’ve lived. However, they have the most beautiful decor, and they are quite proud of their decor. Hence, the dupe video I was watching. In this video, the presenter re-created these beautiful yarn-covered trees. 

I thought to myself, I can do that! I have craft paper, yarn, and all things holiday! I was excited. Here is where it began to go south, though – She had a pro-tip, spray foam inside your cones to give them stability for not only your holiday decor but also for storing. Brilliant! I watched her confidently fill her trees up to the very end, and on the next screen, she was cutting the foam off with her serrated knife. I knew we had some spray foam lying around, so I gathered all of my supplies and went to work.

I found items around the house to create my circles (Pizza pans, lids, bowls, etc. work great for this). From there, I created my cones and proceeded to head to the garage to spray them full ofwith foam. I have a suggestion here – before adding the foam, find a way to support your cones upside down. This will save you a lot of stress and panic when your foam is doing its magic. 

I read the instructions on the can, and with my confidence high from working with this product, I got busy. I filled my cones, propped them up, and walked away. Now, I KNEW the foam would expand and that I’d need to keep a fairly close eye on them. When I returned a mere 20 minutes later, the foam was getting pretty dome-shaped at the end of my cones. I grabbed up a scrap piece of wood and scraped off my trees. This apparently activated the foam even more, and the foam started to really expand at an accelerated rate. Oh dear! The panic was starting to set in. I had at least 9 of these trees, and I was struggling to keep up with the expanding mess I’d created. plus, whenever I’d get done with one tree cleanup, the other tree next to it would fall, and foam would go EVERYWHERE and was getting on EVERYTHING in its path. This was more of a nightmare than a fun, stress-free holiday crafting experience. AND to top it off, the garage is more of a “borrowed” space as it’s really Tom’s domain. I knew if he saw what I was up to, there would be a lot of “Are you SURE you know what you’re doing? DO you need HELP? May I make a suggestion?…” and I really didn’t want to answer all of those questions. Just sayin’! 

I grabbed the can to re-read the instructions to see how long it had to sit before it dried or cured fully and could be cut. This would give me an indication of how many times I would have to babysit and scrape my trees. <eye roll> It turns out that the cure time is a mere 30 minutes, and at the very bottom of the can, in ant-sized font, there is a directive that should have been in BOLD print right under the name of the spray. It said, “Only fill halfway and do NOT overfill!” UNBELIEVABLE!!! but I was well past that, and these trees were still growing larger and larger. OH, what to do!? 

Finally, after repeatedly removing the outer foam, the inner foam started to slowly harden up. What a relief! Ah…. what a scary situation. But, I was at the end, and things were going to improve. They had to. Right? I decided to let my trees rest overnight, and after returning from our morning expedition, I gathered up all my trees Ice cream cones and brought them to my craft table. Apparently, they weren’t quite done expanding when I put them to bed. 

The next day, I cut off the ends and stacked them up to be discarded but began to work on gluing and winding the yarn around my cones. The trees turned out rather cute, and I am very glad that they look the way I envisioned. While I was admiring my tree creations, I saw those dome shapes sitting there, begging to become something. I could hear Tom in my head saying, “Throw them out!” but instead, I cleared my mind of that notion, and I began to think about igloos with dancing paper penguins on them in a cute, snowy scene. I thought about making them into a stacked Ice Cream cone decor piece for a birthday party, but then it hit me. Snowmen! So, that is what I did. I took my NIGHTMARE and turned it into two adorable (at least to me) snowmen. 

To make these snowmen *snow people?, I used glossy cardstock (Tim Holtz) for the hat, dollar tree ribbon from my stash for the hat band, stuffed animal eyes (Joanns or Amazon), and polymer clay for the nose, mouth, and arms. A strip of cloth from a quilt jelly roll (stash) and little Christmas ornament shoes from Dollar Tree (currently in stock at my Dollar Tree). The snow is Snowtex, and the glitter, Tim Holtz Rock Candy (Amazon/Ranger/SimonSaysStamp). 

Happy crafting!