Monday, February 4, 2013

The Ultimate Snowman - Grinch in a Fort - Part 3

You now get to see our wonderful Grinch snowman in a fort. He comes complete with mud snowballs! 

We hadn't planned on making a Grinch snowman. We thought we would just make a great snowman. However, we had so many "experts" working on it that it couldn't have been anything but wonderful. 

Princess five and I were the "fort Makers" while Princess number one took on special effects with a squirt bottle and some food coloring. 

Prince number 1 was the Facial Design specialist. 

I cut down some of the branches on the tree you see just behind the Grinch. I used those for arms. I thought it would be cute to have one up and one down rather than just both sticking out the sides. I also thought it would be cute to leave a "hand" of branches so we could have him hold something. 


If you were making a "Girl" snowgirl, you could put a purse on her, cute frilly scarf and a fun hat and sunglasses. 

We used the snow block makers for the fort. It worked better when the snow got packed in it rather tight. We then made a "Brick wall" for the "Grinch" to hide behind. 
 
 Make sure that you alternate the bricks so they don't fall over independently. It would be like stacking all the Lego's on top, one pile falls over if you don't stagger them. This gives the wall strength.

I suggested using black obsidian rocks from our "rock collection" in the front yard. It gave the snowman a mean look.  
 
Prince number one then took some of the bark in the front flower beds and made a mouth. It matched the sinister eyes. I don't think I would have ever come up with using the bark. 

Didn't he do a great job?

All that while, Princess one was taking frequent trips into the kitchen to put warm water into the sprayer and adding a drop or two of green food coloring in.  
 
She then started spraying the snow Grinch.  The darker she wanted an area, the more she sprayed it. 

So, to highlight the mouth and make it look open, she sprayed that area more. 
 
It wasn't until later we thought we should make the snowballs into "Mud" so we mixed a few colors in to make the snow look brown. 

We wanted the brown snowballs to stand out against the green of the Grinch and the white of the fort wall. When they were white, they weren't seen against the snow as you can see in the photos.
 
    I wish all the girls had been there and helped as I thought it would make a fun Christmas card photo for next year. Us with the Grinch. 

Funny and true story. While we were making our Grinch snowman, our neighbors had their grandchildren visiting. They drove past several times while we were making it. The kids kept pointing and you could see they were enjoying our efforts. 
 
After we finished making the Grinch our nieghbors took a walk with one of the younger boys. When he got to our house, he didn't look happy. The mom picked him up but I think it scared him. We were all sitting in the house playing a game and all started laughing when that happened.

We may have scared him for life. 

We put a hat on the Grinch just to show some holiday spirit but it got frozen to the man. Also, spraying the water on him made the outside turn to ice and he lasted a good long time. 
 
Well, the part that was left of him anyway. Some neighborhood boys saw him the next day when they came caroling and within an hour, we all felt the ground shake and ran up to see the top and middle section down. But the bottom section lasted a month before melting completely.   I think he would have lasted a good long time but boys will be boys.... 

One last thing, the eyes get hot and melt the snow so I don't think I would use obsidian again but other items may work better. Buttons perhaps. I thought it would be cute to have a yard or neighborhood full of different snowmen. One house with a cowboy, one with a Dr. One with a mom and kids, etc. Perhaps next year we will get the neighbors in on it.

No comments:

Post a Comment