HARK... an ELF is Born for the Fairfield World Handmade Holiday Challenge with Designer Crafts Connection

Welcome to another special Designer Crafts Connection Challenge - using products from Fairfield World. We have been challenged to make handmade holiday gifts or decor featuring Fairfield World's Poly-fil line - fiberfill, batting, poly-fil beads, pillow inserts, and more I had my visions of sugarplums dancing in my head and designs on making my very own "Elf on the Shelf" sitter.

In today's project I have used Poly-fil Poly-Pellets Stuffing Beads, Crafter's Choice Dry Polyester Fiberfill, and oly*fun™ - all from Fairfield World. Other supplies used: Smoothfoam baby head; Super Sculpey polymer clay; Faber-Castell Gelatos; Faber-Castell PITT pens; Faber-Castell Gesso; Sewing Machine; Water Brush; Tonic Scissors and Beacon Fabri-Tac Adhesive.

Join us today November 7th through 14th for this special Fairfield World Handmade Holiday Challenge. For this event there is a fabulous giveaway too {please scroll down for Rafflecopter entry info}.

To begin, I ventured over to Pinterest to look up some elves for reference to sketch out a quick pattern for the body, arms and legs. The official "Elf on the Shelf" is a simple shape, that's full of personality and my Smoothfoam baby head is perfect to create my own little mischievous elf to have some holiday pictoral fun.

I primed the head with gesso and then mixed up a nice skin tone with peach and several pink Gelatos blended with a bit of watered down gesso. I built up the color in layers until I arrived at a nice skin tone. When the base color was completely dry - I used a sponge dauber to apply some Gelatos to create rosy cheeks. 

Now to brink my ELF to life... she needs a face! I painted a base layer in the eyes with the large white Faber-Castell PITT pen, then added blue and finally the black accents and eyelashes using PITT brush pens. The fine tip of the brush nibs came in really handy in working on such small details.

The final touch is magenta PITT brush pen added with a water brush to control intensity of red on the lips. Now with the face done, I set this aside to dry and I have a second baby head wrapped in plastic wrap to buildup some dimensional hair using the Super Sculpey clay. I did this by rolling out thin coils and layering in curl shapes around the face and ears. I did have to bake this to harden per instructions on package. I stained the polymer clay hair with a combination of brown Gelatos. The clay did make my head a bit top heavy, but I sorted that out when I fashion the body and fill with the stuffing beads.

The body and clothing came together really quick and easy using oly*fun™ and a combination of machine sewing and Fabri-Tac adhesive. The arms and legs are filled with the Crafter's Choice Dry Polyester Fiberfill and the body filled with the Poly-fil Poly-Pellets Stuffing Beads, so she will be sitting pretty and not topple over. I think she needs a skirt. When I construct the skirt, I will use this to add a bit more weight to her by making the skirt filled with more of the stuffing beads.

My Handmade "SCOUT" Elf is
already getting into mischief!

CLICK the BOXES below to visit each stop on the
Fairfield World Handmade Holiday Challenge...

An InLinkz Link-up

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Don't forget to enter to win the fabulous prize from Fairfield World!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Thanks so much for visiting! For more ideas and inspiration follow the Designer Crafts Connection "Handmade Holiday" Bloghop by selecting hop back/forward on the logo below to enjoy all of the wonderful creations. Sb :)

Designer Craft Connection

[ Hop back ] [ Hop forward ]