Mr. Elf

Well, I did say that it was the Year of the Elf at our house a week or so ago, and I was not kidding. The elf theme continues!

After we visited the Steve Gerberich Holiday Springs and Sprockets exhibit at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham a few weekends ago, Joey started asking to make his own elf. I told him that mom didn't have the right equipment (bandsaw) to make a wooden elf but that I thought we could make a pretty good elf out of cardboard. So, I picked up a few boxes at WM on Friday, and Saturday morning we set out to build our elf. I modeled our elf loosely after the one in this picture:



First, I traced the necessary body parts onto the cardboard. The arm/hand of the elf is Joey's arm/hand. Then I used a box cutter to cut out the pieces. It went better than I thought. I was easily able to cut the cardboard. Then Joey, with a little help from me, painted the elf. Mostly I just spread out any extra thick paint on the front and then painted the backs of the pieces and set them off to dry. Then yesterday, after drying overnight, I used a hot glue gun to put him together. That also went better than expected. The glue really holds the cardboard great. Using some craft supplies I already had around the house, we were able to design a decent face. Of course I took some pics along the way and after he was done.

Joey's pretty happy, so mom's happy.