Snow Zombie and his Victim

My boyfriend and I were outside. Most people would enjoy "outside," but it's winter and I hate winter so much. You don't even understand. I hate waking up in the dark and getting out of work in the dark. I hate cleaning my car off in freezing cold temperatures. I hate my shoes and pants getting wet and cold, then never drying. I hate slipping. I hate falling. I hate snowblindness. You get the idea. Winter is pretty much the worst thing ever.

That being said, the only redeeming part of winter is making a snowman. It's the only thing that makes the suffering worth it all. I build a snowman every single year and I try to make it cute or funny. I do have a really nice picture of last year's snowman, but that will come later.

This year though, the snowman needed to be super cool since we're having a very warm winter here and it's hardly snowed at all (HOORAY!). So we made a small zombie and his victim.

How did we make them? 

Build 2 snowmen: one standing, one lying. Use whatever you want for the eyes and use branches for arms. We used chestnuts for the victim's eyes and the spiny shells for the zombie.

For the green color, you take a 4- or 5-oz. bottle, like an old eyeglass cleaner bottle, and you fill it with water and leave just about a quarter inch at the top below the screw portion of the neck. Add four drops yellow and four drops of blue food coloring. Yes, regular food coloring, like you use for cookies. Spray your zombie (he's about 2-3 feet tall) and this covers him front and back. 

Next, dump any extra out. Refill the bottle and use two drops of red and two drops of orange. This will get you a "jersey orange" look, so you can change it if you want, but we thought it would be funny to have it be someone with a "jersey tan". Spray down your victim.

Dump out the extra and refill. Use about 4 drops of red. You will end up with pink, but for spraying the little blood spots on the zombie, this is a great way to give him some variation of color. You can also carve him a mouth and spray a lot in there. You also need to give your victim a wound (carving with a butter knife works pretty well) and spray a lot of red in there. You're not trying to soak it bright red since you would need a lot of undiluted color for that, you just want people to get the idea.

Break off some little branch pieces about an inch big and make them zombie teeth. For the final touch, take your red food color and gently touch single undiluted drops to his lips to make his mouth especially bloody, you can give your victim a bloody mouth while you're at it (he's got no organs!!), and also put a couple of drops in his wound. This might use your red up, but I'm assuming you're reading this and didn't rush straight outside, so you knew what you were getting into.

Now go outside and hate winter a little less... unless you live where there is no snow, in which case you're lucky!