Item number two was the snowman pictured on the cover. I did have to go out and get two florist-foam balls but other than that I was able to use things I already had on hand.

One thing I found with the crafts and the recipes was that Better Homes and Gardens assumes that you already know quite a bit about cooking and sewing. This was one of the items with a more specific description of what to do but many items included things like “Make a pattern…” and “Start by making a papier machée reindeer head…”

My 2 year old enjoyed helping me add some snowflake stickers to the back side of the snowman as well. He was pretty proud of the whole endeavor and I must say the finished result sure does scream 1963.

My personal favorites were these candy cane covers. They are so silly and fun and looked very festive poking out of stockings. I do think if I made them again, I’d extend the pattern to be a little longer both ends – I think candy canes these days might be a bit longer so they wind out poking a ways out the snout. Now that I think about it – maybe I was supposed to put them on the straight end? Hindsight! I think I made eight while watching two episodes of Better Off Ted.