I have previously blogged about our yummy Christmas gifts to hubby's business clients which showcased gifts we DIY and baked and customised since 2008 to 2010. For 2011, we made some awesome Christmas ribbon trees and then for 2012, we made Christmas trees and houses made of snacks and treats for hubby's clients.
This year, 2013, it is really getting MORE and MORE challenging. With 3 kiddos in tow and time constraints as well, it is really a tough task to complete, though thank God, we made it!
We started cracking our heads on the theme for this year's gifts and hubby came up with the snowman idea. We then have to think what we can use to make the snowman. We have always tried our best to handmade if not all, the majority part of our gifts as we believe in putting in some form of uniqueness and personal touch in our gifts (instead of just buying ready-made hampers etc)
So I came up with my first draft of how our snowman should look like. We planned to get 2 plastic containers and stacked them up, filled them with snacks, candies and treats and put the snowman in a basket.
This was how we wanted the snowman to look like. I took this shot while hubby was in the car taking care of our 3 kiddos. Yes, the whole family have to go out and tag along as hubby and I have to decide together on what to get and how it should look like. Then hubby bought the ribbons and baskets while I get the buttons and other decoration items.
The next challenge is to decide how to make the snowman. Spray it? Paint it? And finally hubby said 'We do the Papier Mâché style.' And so begins the laborous tasks to shred newspapers, wet each pieces with glues and stick the first layer and then we need to add more newspapers near the container's base to puff up the snowman for it's belly and head. Picture below on left is the first result after pasting the newspaper on the containers.
Picture above on right is the first result after hubby add in the fillers to smoothen up the snowman, sand papering them and painting about 2 coats of white paint over the snowman. At this point to be honest, hubby was losing confidence in our snowman as some of them are cracking up and making holes when we hold them up and while I persevered on and kept on telling him it looks nice and not to compare our snowman with the commercial adverts showing those smooth rounded snowman image.
I did at one point lost my confidence too when I accidentally cracked one of the snowman just as I picked it up to investigate whether it has dried up completely. I felt so down that I began to make another prototype using ribbons and stuff. Hubby got home, saw my prototype and went 'No. We use our Papier Mâché snowman!'
The next day, he started making the snowman's nose, I gave him an orange colored marker pen and upon gluing the nose onto the snowman head, it really starts to look real nice. I immediately see hubby's face lighting up and as we drew the eyes and mouth (Ben even drew one of the snowman's mouth!) and started gluing them onto the snowman's head, followed by the buttons on the snowman's body, by then it really looks more and more awesome!
Then hubby had to rush out for an appointment and while our kiddos take their lunch, I continued onto touch up the snowman's hat with some tiny glitter stones on the hat's surface and also putting a ribbon all around the hat's base. I also started stuffing the snowman's body and head with snacks, treats and candies.
As for the snowman's hands, I used 2 toothpicks, 1 acted as the arm, while another 1 is broken into 2 as the fingers. Then I used a white paper plaster to plaster up the arms and the fingers. Final touch is to color up the hands with brown crayon. I couldn't find my brown marker pen, so crayon it is!
When hubby got home in the evening, we continued on to seal the snowman's head with a white crepe paper, secured with rubber bands and then we just put on the head onto the snowman's body. I then proceeded to cut out a long strand of red ribbon to tie up around each snowman's neck. Each of the snowman has different scarf style!
Next, we glued the hat to the snowman's head and hubby started adding snacks and treats into each basket where we put in the snowman. After all snacks and treats have been added into the basket, hubby started gluing and pasting the hands onto the snowman. After our kiddos went to bed, I quickly designed the greeting cards, printed them and pasted them onto postcard and cut out the cards accordingly. Punched a hole into each cards and string them with a nice green colored ribbon.
And so we present to you now, some pictures taken of the 2013 Christmas gifts for hubby's clients:
I personally like the one below, the snowman looks so cute with his tiny little O-shaped mouth, as if he is surprised with something!
Like I mentioned earlier, with 3 kiddos in tow and time constraints as well, it is really a tough task to complete this year! I think hubby did most of the tasks (the idea, the painting, etc etc), I only managed to papier mâché a few of the snowman's heads and bodies as everytime I tried to sit down to paste the newspaper shreds, either baby Carolyn will cry or Alyson will be disturbing Benjamin or vice versa.
Anyway, that is history now. The important thing is our job is finally done and I'm glad to see hubby's happy face at the results of our gifts this year. I hope hubby's clients will like their snowman too!
So what do you think of our gifts this year?
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