I fell victim to holiday marketing this year, thanks to those cunning folks at the
Barn that is full of most everything except
Pottery. Usually I manage to take only an occasional peak at their stuff, primarily just for a little look-see; it seldom gets beyond the drooling stage. Until this year, that is.
It was one of their ever-changing, Christmas "One Day Sales" they've been pushing for many, many days now--I have an overstuffed in-box to prove it. I'll grant them this--
they are savvy! I can't decide if I was truly enchanted by their product or if they just wore me down. (I know for sure they couldn't care less which one it was--the end result is what matters, right?
Ka-ching!)
This is what I fell for:
Aren't they sweet? Aren't you just enchanted?
Firstly, I pictured these guys as being somewhat more diminutive. And secondly, they should have come with a warning about sharp edges! Geesh--it was
dangerous pulling these skinny bad boys out of their boxes and untangling their "antlers."
Once I finally got them out of their boxes, I couldn't decide what to do with them. They look different in person and not quite so enchanting--
but I think that's more a lack of imagination on my part than on theirs! Frankly, they look like some metal-work sculpture I would have seen at a Mexican bazaar. Now don't get me wrong, I love Mexican bazaars! It's just that if they had indeed come from a Mexican bazaar, they would have cost a whole lot less! (Apparently they come from a
Chinese bazaar--the "made in" sticker indicated as much.
How exotic.)
So they sat under a table in the livingroom for about a week. Mr. P walked by one day and asked where they came from. I told him not to ask.
I walked past them, too, wondering just what I was going to do with them!
They needed
something...but what?
Ribbons? Colorful ribbons? There's 3 of them...what is Christmasy and comes in 3's?
How about
J-O-Y?
Round 1 with the
Graphics Fairy, I downloaded some of her Christmas sheet music ("The Christmas Tree") and made a star cut-out. Working with 3 of the same cut-outs, I added red letters. Though you wouldn't know it, all 3 of the starts are the same size in my computer file, I just printed them out in proportionate sizes to match the deer.
At this point, perhaps I should have punched holes in the tops, put a ribbon through them and called it a day? (As in,
sometimes less is more?!)
But
no.....I wanted some bling.
Round 2 with glitter glue:
I had a bottle of
red glitter-glue. Well, as you can see above, glitter-glue isn't quite as snazzy as regular old hard-working glitter, nor does it go on evenly. Grrrr!
So I added multi-colored regular old glitter (didn't have any red). Oh Joy, so nice and sparkly!
And the final result?
Having made their way to the
top of the table, here they stand, paused, not sure what to do next.
Find some fake snow perhaps?!
In retrospect, I think I should have given the tags a white background to make it pop out a bit more; but that's getting a little fussy. They'll do for now. I'll figure something out....any ideas?!
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave the lustre of midday to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.
- Clement Moore, The Night Before Christmas.
