DIY Mounted Rudolph Head
7:30 AMOk, so this is my holiday decor project that I've been hyping up for the last week.
First up, go get this stuff.
3 sheets of foam core board1 string of red battery powered led lights (I got mine at Ikea for $3)
1 standard socket sized light bulb or a similarly sized light bulb. (just compare it to your assembled head and decide if you like it)
Krylon Looking Glass Spray Paint ( I wouldn't have bought it for just this project, but I already had some)
Mod Podge
3-4 colors of Christmas Magic (or if you are kinda boring, glitter)
Hot glue
White Electrical tape
Some sort of picture hanging hardware
And you'll need this stuff too
An exacto knife with extra blades
A hot glue gun
Small paint brushes
Printer
Wire strippers
Okey dokey, first up you'll need to print off this template at 400%. Just go into your printer settings and change it there. If you're having trouble figuring that out just ask the person in your family who's into that stuff, but do them a favor and remember what they are showing you. Once the template is all printed out, tape the 4 pages together so it's one big page. I trimmed a little bit of the margin so that I could line up the shapes perfectly. Now tape that big template to a sheet of foam core board and get to cutting. Your hand will get tired and you will need to use multiple blades. Oh and just so you know, the template is on 4 pages but you can squeeze it all into 3 sheets of foam core board. once you have all the pieces cut out you can put them together and give yourself a pat on the back.
You might notice I cut out 2 of the shield/plaque shape. I wanted that one to look a little more substantial. One other thing I will warn you about, when you increase the size of the template the slots get bigger too. When I put it all together they were lose and a little shaky. Nothing a little hot glue can't solve. Just run a bead of glue on the back side of your seams so you don't see it from the front.
Now this would just be a normal deer hear if not for the red nose, I used a cheap battery powered set of red lights from Ikea, an empty light bulb, some white electrical tape, and some of that fancy looking glass spray paint. (I'm pretty sure you could find the lights elsewhere if you don't have an Ikea, like maybe Hobby Lobby or perhaps a specialty Christmas Store. so hollow out your light bulb. Here is a YouTube link if you don't know how to do that.) Once you have the lightbulb hollowed out take it out side and spray some of the paint inside it. A quick burst of paint should be plenty, and don't worry if it looks like too much because that's what you want. Swirl it around until it dries, I used a blow dryer to speed up the process. You can repeat this again if it's a little to transparent, the light will be pretty bright through this stuff.
Now it's time to modify the lights. Only 5 of the led lights would fit into my light bulb opening so I cut the last 5 lights from the strand and the wire between the battery pack and the first light. Leave yourself plenty of wire to work with for now and bundle the remaining lights into a little stem and tape them tightly together.
Now you'll need to fish the wires through the different layers of Rudolph's head. The battery pack fits nicely in this little spot so I started there. Your battery pack might be different, but basically you want to hide the pack and the wire as much as possible. I found that some white electrical tape hid any of the red wire showing nicely.
I also neede to cut out holes in the front 2 layers to accommodate the little stem of wires leading to the led lights, but once it was hung up you couldn't really see it. And as for attaching the light bulb, I just stuck it in between the 2 profile pieces. No glue or anything! Once you have all your wires placed reconnect the wires to each other and test our Rudolph's nose. If it doesn't light up don't worry, you probably just need to switch the wires (it happened to me).
Now the Christmas Magic (glitter) is completely optional, but your friends won't be as impressed with your project as they would have if it had been glittered. I used a mixture of glitter and Mod Poge and just painted it where I wanted it. For the plaque I used Smoky Quartz all over, then did a faux bois design free hand with Brownstone.
For the head I used Brownstone on the antlers and Carrera Marble for the head.
To attach the head to the mounting plaque I just globed a bunch on hot glue on the back of the neck piece, lined up the corresponding slots and held it tight for a few minutes.
All you need now is to add your mounting hardware and you've got an awesome Rudolph head to hang on your fireplace.
I think it even looks nice enough to leave up all year long, with the light off of course! I also wonder if paper mâché would look good on one of these heads? Who knows, I just don't want to ruin all this hard work by going one step too far. Do you ever do that?
Well I hope you like it! If you make on I would Love, Love, LOVE to see it!
4 comments
Pretty cute
ReplyDeleteThis is literally everything I've been wanting to create, without knowing I wanted to create it. I found the post on Ikea Hacks and I love everything about it, including the Christmas Magic (which my boyfriend doesn't even call "Glitter" - he calls it "mess").
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to give it a go! :)
Hey, I love this! I tried to see the original PDF on MrF_DT_teacher's page. Do you have the template still? I would really like to make some for Christmas Presents.
ReplyDeleteNice post thanks for sharring
ReplyDeleteHi! I love comments, they're the best!