Peg People Sets for Operation Christmas Child

This project is super fun and it turns out really cute.

1. Purchase wooden peg people or peg dolls that are unfinished.  These can be found in the craft wood section of many craft stores, but I prefer to purchase mine online where I can get more dolls for the money.  This is a good set to get: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WQDTTCE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

2.  You will also need acrylic paints.  These can be artist acrylics, craft paints or paint markers.  I use all 3.  I purchased several different skin tones in craft paint, but I prefer to just use my artist acrylics for any other colors and mix them myself.  This is totally up to you.  For details, you can't beat Posca extra-fine paint markers.  These things are amazing.
 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B001VB4T86/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good detail brushes will also be helpful.  Model painting brushes seem to work pretty well for me.

3. Let's start painting!   I generally paint a set of 3 all at once.  This way, by the time you finish painting on the third doll, the first one is usually dry enough to work on again.  Do not put your paint on in thick layers, even if it appears see-through.  It works much better to do multiple thin layers, and it dries really fast.
You will want to work from the skin - out.

Paint the head and shoulders your chosen skin color first.  Some people leave the skin as raw wood on peg dolls, which is really cute, but I have found that the paint markers sometimes bleed on the raw wood.  I like to do my faces with paint markers, so I'd rather work on a pre-painted face.

4. Simple large areas of color for the clothing.  I'm still using paint and brushes at this point.  You can draw on details with pencil if it helps you, but I would still do this step first.
 
You can get the basic shape of the hair in at this point too.


5. Let's bust out some paint pens!  At this point I start adding in details one layer at a time.  Be careful to let things dry before you add the next layer...  Of course, you can also do the details with paint and brush if you prefer.











6.  The box.  I have a surplus of old Altoid tins at my disposal, so I'm using these.  (FYI, however, the large dad peg person is a bit too wide for an Altoid tin to fully latch.  It mostly closes.  I wrap the box in a rubber band.)  Any small box could work here, just make sure it's clean and dry.
 
I also have a bin full of collage goodies: scrapbook paper, magazines, calendars, stickers, etc.
Using the bottom of the box as a stencil I simply cut a neat paper for the floor and back of my Altoid tin.

If you have a thicker paper, tacky glue will work fine to adhere your papers to the tin.  Use a thin even layer.  If you have a thinner paper, like a magazine, rubber cement would be a better choice.  Thinner papers will wrinkle with the tacky glue (or any water-based glue).

Lastly, add some stickers if you'd like.

7.  I recommend you seal your peg dolls with a clear coat.  I use a clear spray paint.  Let it dry for the recommended amount of time before you package up your set.

8. When the set is done, I place the dolls in the box, wrap it up with a rubber band, and place a card on the top (under the rubber band).  This is the card I designed.



Have Fun!

Art Class Signage

I am now teaching 4 Art classes for homeschoolers, and 2 of them are at my house.  I decided this morning that it was high time for some official signage :)

To make this sign I took a trip to my local A.C. Moore and purchased 3 wooden letters (A,R,T) and a wooden palette.  The rest is all acrylic paint and wood glue.  I painted each letter to emulate a famous work of art, glued it all together and added some hand painted lettering.  Tomorrow I will give it a few coats with a clear sealer and affix a wire to the sides so that it can be hung on a hook outside my front door.  I'm really happy with it!  I should have made one of these a long time ago. :)

The File Cabinet

When we moved into our new home there was an old wooden file cabinet in the garage filled with random garage junk.  I knew that it needed to be my new art supply cabinet, but it needed some help first.  We cleaned out all of the drawers, but when we tried to move it we discovered that it was coming apart on the bottom.  Boo!  So I pulled out all of the drawers and used some scrap lumber to strengthen the structure.  I also removed an ugly locking mechanism and filled some holes.

Next, I set to work on the drawers.  They had some sort of folder locks that slid along a rail that had been pushed all of the way back.  While moving these around to clean them up I discovered something quite unexpected wedged between the panels.

Woah... I wonder how long THAT has been in there....

At any rate, after cleaning the whole thing up I took it out to the back porch for a good sanding and painted the whole thing light grey (with some paint that I had picked up at the local reuse center for free).  I decided to do another project with a chevron pattern.  This time I created a template the exact size of each drawer front on some paper.  Using a graphite transfer method I drew the pattern on each drawer front.  Basically, I scribbled on the back of where the lines were with a pencil and then traced over the lines on the front... essentially like using carbon paper.  I hand painted the chevron in with white paint.  Lastly, a little distressing with the sander.

Now it looked great on the outside!  The inside, however, wasn't designed to hold objects so the bottoms of the drawers were not solid.  No big deal!  I cut some foamcore to the exact size of the drawer bottoms and covered the pieces with dollar store contact paper. Viola!  Now it is filled up with art goodies and ready for use!