Just Add Flair!

It’s About Time

After years of talking about it, I finally decided to design my own unique Christmas display this year!  And by the time I came up with a theme, Christmas was just over a month away, yikes!  Time to get to work!

When I was trying to decide on a theme for my holiday display, there were two things that I knew I wanted.  1) It had to bring joy to kids(and as it turns out many adults!). 2) And with all that was happening in the world at the moment, I felt the need to send a message of love and togetherness.  What theme could possibly fulfill these requirements, and not be so commonly used that you see it on every other holiday display!!?  The It’s a Small World ride at Christmas in Disneyland was what I came up with!

I began my project by searching the internet for images of the castle and the iconic children found in It’s a Small World.  Because I wasn’t going to be able to make all of the children with less than 4 weeks til Christmas, I focused on 7 of them for this year. Once I had selected my design inspirations, I headed to Home Depot to get plywood and paint.

Here is a list of the materials used:

-Plywood

-Latex paint/variety of brush sizes

-Clear acrylic paint

-Pencil

-Large roll of paper(optional)

-Scissors

-Jigsaw/sawhorses

-Sandpaper

-Pictures of It’s a Small World castle and the children you want to paint

 

Because plywood comes in a standard size of 2’x 4′ I decided to make all my children 2′ tall, that way I could get two kids per sheet of plywood.  For the castle, I chose to use two 4’x 8′ sheets of plywood.  The lovely people working in the paint department at Home Depot must have loved it when I asked them for 12 different paint colors in tiny sample sizes!

I began by painting the plywood for my castle all white in order to create a nice clean slate for my design.  I then painted the plywood to be used for the children the skin tone that I had selected for each one.  Next I sketched my children onto 2’x 2′ paper that I would cut out and use as a template on my plywood.

Once I had all my templates drawn and cut out, I started to sketch them directly onto my plywood.  My terrific husband then used his jigsaw to cut all the kids out for me. I was going to do it myself, but since he offered…..

Now the fun begins! Even my 5 yo got into painting the project!

Midway point in the painting(roughly)!

Almost done with the castle….

Six of my kids completed…

To create a ground stake for each kid, you can see that we used a metal pole attached to the back with a bracket.

Last but not least…the Small World clock face!

I should also mention that, in order to protect the wood and paint, we put two layers of clear acrylic paint over each of the pieces.

After several weeks of painting away in the basement, we have our final display and I couldn’t be happier!  Next year I plan to add on more characters and Disney holiday attractions! At least I have the next 11 months off!