Elf on the Shelf wants to be a Time Lord

This Christmas was our family's first year having an Elf on the Shelf. Up until this year my littles have said the elves were "creepy" (my daughter's word), and I was inclined to agree with them... really, if you think about it... they sit in your home and watch your behaviour, then fly back to Santa each night to report on you, and like the Weeping Angels, they only move when no one's looking at them! They're little quantum-locked Christmas spies, heheh.

While I've laughed at some of the elf antics other people have shared, I haven't minded my sproutlets not wanting an elf in our home. But this year my 5 year old said she wanted Santa to send us one. I'm fairly certain this change of heart was precipitated by her coming across a tiny pilot outfit in the "Elf Adoption Centre" area of the department store. She was Amelia Earhart for Hallowe'en this year, and she loves her aviator goggles:

   

So when she discovered the Claus Couture aviator jacket & goggles, she asked me to help her email Santa this request:

Dear Santa, 
If you would please send us an Elf on the Shelf this Christmas I promise I won't say he looks creepy, & I even got him a pilot jacket to keep warm & goggles to see in the clouds. And mummy & me will bake you gluten-free brownies too!
Love, Kate

So, we got a scout elf of our own, who my little girls named Cocoa Earhart. Our elf didn't get up to many shenanigans, mostly just moved from room to room, hiding just enough so that the kidlets had to look around for a few minutes, but some days he was found doing something funny, like swinging from the ceiling fan, and reading a story to the toy dinosaurs, and once, pretending to be the Eleventh Doctor:

He was sitting in front of a little TARDIS, wearing a felt fez instead of his usual elf hat, holding a tiny sonic screwdriver, with our copy of "When's The Doctor" open to the New Earth page, which has cats in pilot hats & goggles - I think one of them is Brannigan from "Gridlock" :)

Do you have a Whovian scout elf, or know of another one? Share in the comments!

Doctor Who Christmas Tree - New Ornaments!

This year our tree got some new handpainted Doctor Who inspired ornaments with some very unique personalizations & mash-ups, one for each of my 5 little Whovians - Christmas gifts from my childhood bestie Kathy! They are the wee balls on ribbon loops below 

I'm really touched by these beautiful gifts! She did her research; she tailored them to each sproutlet's interests and looked up elements from the shows and even watched some to get the details right - and she did!  So thoughtful & talented* ♥

On the left, for my biggest boy Beanstalk, she painted a Zombie Doctor! And on the right, for my middle girl Sydney Bean, Hello Kitty Doctor, ha!  

Another turn of the Zombie ball shows the Zombie TARDIS,  and this time, on the right, an Angry Birds Red Bird Dalek for my 9 year old Pickle :)  

On the bottom of the Zombie Who ornament, one of Dr. Simeon's Snowmen! At first I thought it was Jack Skellington, because Beanstalk's name is Jack, & I love the Nightmare Before Christmas - but on second look I recognized it :)  Then on the right is the flip side of Pickle's Angry Bird ornament, with a White Bird Doctor!  

Next, she painted K-9 for my youngest, Birdie, and the Berserker pendant from the Sarah Jane Adventures for 11 year old Bella. The detail is perfect, I'm so impressed!  

Another angle of K-9, and Sprout's Hello Kitty Doctor again, with his (her?) TARDIS  

They're personalized too! Birdie's K-9 has her name, Kate, in the Zodiac Wheel from the Sarah Jane Adventures. Jack the Beanstalk has a bloody name above his Snowman, Sydney Bean has hearts on the flip side of her Hello Kitty ball, and Angus (Pickle) has a wee green pig evading the Angry Bird Dalek. And Mia Bella has the pretty purple Sarah Jane Adventures logo & jumbled numbers & letters from the title sequence.

These are all the pics I took this year - between the blur that was Christmas morning with 5 little ones, having company for the Doctor Who Christmas Special, then leaving for Christmas part 2 with the family in Canada the next day, I didn't think to take any until I was un-decorating! We didn't Who-ify the whole tree this year anyways, just the section in the photo. The sproutlets wanted some other characters & Christmassy stuff on there - kids! ;)

Oh, I did get this cute snapshot of my Sydney Bean playing with the Weeping Angel tree topper when we were decorating. She just loves that thing! She's a big fan of the sinister statues - she even requested an Angel themed school lunch (see it on my bento blog).

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! 

Now, only 9 months to wait for a new Who episode...

* My talented friend Kathy also painted a gorgeous Van Gogh-style TARDIS in the starry sky ornament that she gave us last year.

DIY Weeping Angel Tree Topper

Happy Christmas in July! Thanks to a nudge from a reader, I'm finally getting around to sharing how I made my Weeping Angel tree topper. It's not a true replica of the sinister statues from Doctor Who, but there's no question what it is...

I've wanted a Weeping Angel statue ever since I first saw Blink. I'd really love a life size one made of stone for my front garden, but as that's not realistic, I decided to settle for a small one to put on top of our Christmas tree. Having neither the sculpting talent nor the desire to create one from scratch, I set out to repurpose a lovely (& inexpensive) non-threatening angel tree topper I bought from a department store.

You will need:

• An angel tree topper. Make sure the arms and hands are poseable!  
• Stone textured spray paint. I used 2 cans of Krylon Make It Stone!
• Clear sealer. I used Krylon Make It Last Spray Sealer
• Paper or drop sheet for spraying against - it's messy stuff!
• A ventilated but not windy place to spray, and leave to dry for hours

Since it was actually nearing Christmas when I started my project, there were many angel tree toppers in the department store. I chose one of the plainest, since I'd be cutting all her ribbons and beads off anyways. I bought Krylon Make It Stone! Black Granite textured spray paint because that was the closest to gray the store had.

I also looked for an angel with sculpted rather than real hair, thinking it might be easier to cover with the spray. And I tried to find one with solid wings but they were all feathered. Solid would have made much less mess - when I cut that fluff off it flew everywhere! Like the down of a thistle ;)

 

STEP 1: Remove and cut off all the angel's embellishments, including tinsel & wing fluff. Trim the dress sleeves to the shoulders if possible. 

Poor trimmed angel. I bent her arms into the weeping position.

STEP 2: Place trimmed angel on covered work surface and follow paint directions to give it a light even coating of textured paint. I used my driveway covered with paper, but underestimated how far the mist would fly, and now have a lighter stone outline of the paper. I'm sure it will fade eventually...

I realized I'd need to bend the angel's arms back out to be able to paint them. So... 

Step 3. Give arms an all-over coat before carefully bending them into "weeping" position while paint is still tacky. Continue spraying until completely covered.

Step 4: Allow to dry in a well-ventilated but not windy place, for about 4 hours. I set mine on my covered porch. 

Step 5. Once the paint has dried, trim any straggly feathers from the wings. Give it another coat and allow to dry another 4 hours.

Step 6. Set angel atop something to allow you to spray right to the bottom and in the folds of the skirt. I used an empty coffee can. Give it another good layer of spray paint and allow to dry. Continue until you are happy with the coverage.

Step 7: After the final coat has dried, give it a light coating of clear sealer if you wish.

All done! Now don't take your eyes off it!

●  ●  ●  ●

Click the pic to see how my Angel looked atop my Doctor Who Christmas Tree:

Doctor Who Christmas Tree & Weeping Angel

This year our family's Christmas tree had a Doctor Who theme! We were inspired by a gift of Doctor Who character popsicle stick puppets & Christmas ornaments made by my friend Karen (who also makes Doctor Who bento lunches, see my post featuring her blog, What's In Our Lunch Bags).

It was such fun to decorate! I turned an ordinary angel tree topper into a Weeping Angel (DIY instructions in this post), added blue lights, TARDIS lights, the ornaments from Karen & a few more, a little bit of blue ribbon and...  voilà!

You can see the ornaments better with the lights off. Besides the DW ornaments, I stuck to stars and snowflakes, as suggested by my 10 year old,  "because there are always stars in space and there's always snow in the Christmas specials" :)

These are some of the ornaments made by my friend Karen:

Eleven & a baby Adipose ...

... River Song & her psychedelic lipstick kiss (it says Hello Sweetie) ...

... Ten & the awesome Donna Noble - loved them together ...

... Rose Tyler & a Dalek ...

... even Sarah Jane & K-9 ♥

There's also a red ball with a fez drawn on it, and she made popsicle stick figures of pretty much every major character. Some are pointed out in the photo but some are around the sides, and some didn't make it on to the tree (I ran out of the ribbon I was tying them to the branches with).

Poor Ood Sigma didn't make it on to the tree, but he's here to show you what the character ornaments look like in popsicle stick puppet form, before a scrap of wired ribbon turned them into ornaments like this one of Amy Pond:

We already had plenty of star & snowflake ornaments, but I bought this one anyways; as soon as I saw it I thought of the Empress Racnoss' Webstar:

My friend Kathy sent me a surprise Christmas gift of ornaments she painted herself. One was this Van Gogh-style TARDIS one, gorgeous! And she didn't even know that "Vincent and the Doctor" is one of my favourite episodes!

In fact, when she painted it, she had no idea I was doing a Doctor Who themed tree!

I wasn't sure about the idea myself. I thought the kidlets might miss having our usual ornaments and colourful lights... but they loved it! Love my little Whovians ♥ 

Here's my middle child Pickle, excited about the TARDIS lights I'd just put up:

The TARDIS lights (from ThinkGeek) come on white wire, like these we have hanging outside, but the little TARDISes snap off for changing the bulbs, so I just snapped them over a set of lights on green wire to blend in with the tree.

Of course, the "stone" Weeping Angel tree topper doesn't light up though ;)

Don't Blink!

See my DIY Weeping Angel post for tree topper instructions 

Maybe next year we'll have some snow to make an evil snowman!

Happy New Year!