Balsa Board Santa

Balsa Board Santa

(not to be confused with "Bored" Santa)

This guy is really not hard to make at all,
and he looks equally smashing
hanging on the wall, adorning a wreath,
or my own personal favorite -
smooshed into the tree.


I love to hang over-sized ornaments!
This Santa is made from balsa wood so he
is practically weightless.  Seriously.

 I started with a Midwest Products
balsa wood board, and used my Midwest
Products Easy Cutter Ultimate
to cut the board in half.

Base coat the 18" board with
white acrylic paint.

I made a pattern for the mustache
by tracing around my board
on a piece of tracing paper, and then
adding a hat brim and a mustache.


Please ignore the hat brim pattern!
Initially I planned to make the hat brim and
the mustache out of paper clay,
but then I had a better idea ... the No-Sew Hat!

I honestly don't know what happened here.

Why don't I have how-to photos of the mustache?

Maybe my hands were covered in clay,
maybe I was focused on the outcome,
maybe I just "forgot" to take pics.
So sad.

I can tell you how I did this,
and you can take my word for it.
Next time I work with paper clay,
I'll make sure my photographer is handy
for the step-by-step shots.
(sorry!)

I put down waxed paper to work on.

I pinched off a piece of paper clay,
wet my fingers, and patted it nice and flat.

Then I placed my tracing paper mustache pattern
over the flattened clay, and outlined the
mustache with a paintbrush handle;
this left the indentation of the mustache in the clay.

I cut the mustache out with a palette knife,
smoothed up the edges with wet fingers,
and pressed a swirly-design rubber stamp
into the wet clay.

 Allow the mustache to dry thoroughly.

(Note: it will have to dry about one day
before you can glue it on)

Next, attach a 1/2" wood button plug
to the top center of the board.


Paint the top 4" or so of the board flesh.
Use pink powder blush and your finger to swirl
rosy cheeks and a pink accent to his nose.


Dip a brush handle into white paint
for the eyes.

I made a quick pattern of some holly leaves
and added swirls to the beard
with a liner brush and medium green paint.

 I shaded the holly leaves with
dark green paint and added highlights
and more curly-cue swirls with gold paint.

I also added gold dip dots along the swirls.
Dip a larger paint brush handle into
red paint and add holly berries.
Allow paint to dry thoroughly.

I used a sanding block to lightly
sand the entire beard, and to heavily
sand the edges of the board.

Next, attach the dried mustache to the
board with Aleene's Tacky Glue.

Add smaller dots of black to the eyes.


I decided to make a simple,
no-sew hat for Santa.

Starting with a 9"x12" piece of wool felt,
I cut it in half diagonally.
Then I folded the larger portion into a
long thin triangle.

Cut off the lower "extraneous" portion
of the triangle hat.

Starting at the pointy tip,
use a hot glue gun to glue the triangle
into a cone-hat shape.

Once the seams are glued together,
shift the hat around until the seam is in the back.
Then roll up the edge of the hat
for a brim, and secure with the glue gun.

Attach the hat to Santa's head.

At this point I decided to add some contrasting
ribbon trim to the hat brim.

This cotton ribbon is fun, and I love the
red and white, but I didn't like it on the hat.

I love the homespun look, but this look
isn't right for this particular Santa hat.

I love this ribbon!
I reach for it all the time, but I haven't
found the perfect project for it yet.

Now we're talking!
As soon as I held this ribbon up to the hat,
I knew it was the right look for this Santa.

A little sparkle on the edges,
and a green holly print that helps pull
in the holly I've painted on the beard.

Attach the ribbon trim to the hat with glue.
I love this pointy hat!  But I decided
to turn it into a floppy hat ...

... so I pulled the hat down in the back
and glued it to the back.

Then I attached a glittery jingle bell
to the pointy tip of the hat.

Thoroughly coat the mustache and beard
with Plaid's Extreme Glitter in Hologram ...
and seal the face with the Multi-Purpose sealer.

All finished!
Here's a pic of the one I painted
last year ... 

I cut the corners of the board with the
Easy Cutter Ultimate
(top and bottom)
painted a glittery red hat and
used the paper clay for the hat brim
as well as the mustache.

It needed "something" more, so I used
my Crop-o-Dile to punch a hole
in the top right corner of the hat,
and I put a Christmas poke through the
hole, bending the back of the pick and glueing
it in place.


Peace and Santa Claus