Recycled Pill Bottle Snowmen

Grab one (or two) of those pill bottles that you’ve been saving and make one of the two pill bottle snowmen shown here. You’ll keep the bottles out of the landfill (because in most places they are not recyclable) and make an appealing snowman decoration for Christmas.

At the end of this post, you’ll find photos and links to easy-to-make pill bottle snowmen from other sites as well. We also have a Valentine Keepsake made from a Pill Bottle and these pretty Pill Bottle Angels right here on AllFreeCrafts!

Pill Bottle Snowman – Version One

Meet PBS1! (Pill Bottle Snowman One).

He’s essentially a pipe cleaner craft because he’s made mostly from pipe cleaners (also known as chenille stems). The fluffier, the bettter!

This little guy will warm your heart even if he is a snowman!

You will need:

Pill container
Chenille Stems in green, red, white, brown, orange and black
Pompoms in white, black and grey
Glue (I used hot glue, but for children use tacky glue)

Version One – Instructions

Clean your pill container thoroughly and remove as much of the label as possible. You can use any sort of bottle for this, including aspirin, vitamin and prescription pill containers. The bottle used here is a prescription container. I used the fluffier chenille stems but you can also use regular ones.

To make the hat, twist your black chenille stem around the bottle, forming a circle (this will be the bottom of the hat), remove from the bottle and continue to twist upward circles for two to three layers. Secure the ends of the chenille stem with a little glue (glue the ends to each other by pulling them together inside the hat).

Wrap white chenille stems around and up the entire outside of the container. Leave the lid attached to the bottle when you do this. You need to leave enough free space at the top to open and close the container. As you go along the bottle, attach the stems with a little glue. Glue a piece of white chenille around the outside of the lid (refer to photo, you will see just below the scarf, how the stem extends out slightly) and secure with glue.

To even up the bottom of the container, wrap a second piece of chenille around the very bottom of the container, securing with glue. To make the scarf, simply twist together one green and one red chenille stem.

Glue a pompom that is large enough to cover the complete top of the container on the top of the lid. Wrap your scarf around the bottom of the pompom, glue a teeny piece of orange chenille for a nose, add two pompoms for buttons and two pompoms for eyes.

Make branch arms, by twisting a small piece of brown chenille around the end of a longer piece and glue to the side of the snowman. Glue the hat in place and you are all done.

Pill Bottle Snowman – Version Two

Meet PBS2! (Pill Bottle Snowman 2)

This charmer is made from cotton balls or batting, along with plastic eyes, seed beads and tiny bits of glittery pipe cleaner for the arms.

The lid of the pill bottle becomes the base of the snowman’s hat.

You Will Need:

1 pill bottle, washed and dried
medicine bottle lid, plus a smaller plastic bottle lid, for hat
small cotton balls or small strips of quilt batting
large cotton ball or white pom pom
one white glittery chenille stem
plastic eyes or small black beads
small triangle of orangle fun foam or construction paper for nose
red yarn or fabric for scarf
black seed beads for mouth
3 black plastic beads as “buttons”
black acrylic craft paint
tacky glue

Version Two – Instructions

1. If you are working with small cotton balls to form the snowman’s body, as we did, then you will need to gently pull each cotton ball apart to separate the fibers a little. In the second row of our “supplies” photo, at right, you can see a small cotton ball on the left, then a small cotton ball pulled apart, in the middle.

The larger white pom pom on the right is used for the head.

2. Combine the cotton balls that you have just pulled apart by gently rubbing them together to form small rectangular strips of cotton batting, as shown in rows three and four of our photo. Alternatively, you can cut small rectangles of quilt batting. Each rectangle should fit halfway up the medicine bottle and all the way around it.

3. Glue the first rectangle in place around the bottom of the medicine bottle. Repeat with the second rectangle, covering the top of the medicine bottle, butting both rectangles together in the middle.

4. Center the smaller bottle lid on top of the medicine bottle lid and glue in place. Let dry, then paint both lids in black acrylic paint to make the hat. Set the hat aside to dry.

5. Glue the orange triangle nose in place, in the center of the pom pom head.

6. Glue two google eyes, or bead eyes, just above the orange nose, placing the eyes quite close together.

7. Use a toothpick to spread a thin bead of tacky glue in a smile shape just below the nose. While the toothpick is still slightly tacky with glue, use it to pick up each of the seed beads and set them in place, one by one, to shape the smile. You will find that you can move the beads around quite a bit to shape the smile in the way that you like. Once the beads are in position, let them dry in place.

8. Apply glue all around the top of the medicine bottle and set the head in place. Allow to dry.

9. Apply glue to the bottom of the snowman’s hat. Set it in place on top of the head and let dry.

10. Bend over 2″ of the chenille stem and twist it back around the main length of the stem to form one of the snowman’s arms. Repeat at the other end of the stem. Curve the remaining middle section of chenille stem around the neck of the snowman, gluing in place at the back only. Bend the arms to achieve the look that you like.

11. Tie a small length of red yarn, or a small strip of ribbon or other ribbon, around the snowman’s neck as a scarf.

12. Finally, glue three black beads down the front of the snowman as buttons.