Christmas Toy Soldiers

These little Toy Soldiers are a detailed ornament and will take some time to create.  However, they will last for a very long time.  My nieces and nephews still hang theirs on the tree and they are now grown and have children of their own.

I decided to make them once more for a few friends of mine and give them to those who did not receive them originally.  Sooooo, here goes.  This will be my very first tutorial ever.  

First:  You will need several supplies:

• Scissors
• Sandpaper
• White glue
• Heavy Duty Garden Snippers/Trimmers
• Craft Clothes Pins
• Craft Popsicle Sticks
• Pencil
• Acrylic Paint: Red, Yellow Blue, White and Black
• Black Sharpie
• Throw Away Plates
• Gesso or White House Paint
• Small Gold beads
• Very Small Google Eyes
• 2.5 inch Black Pompoms
• Gold Glitter
• Gold Trim (Small)
• Red Satin Cord Trim
• Tweezers
• Paint Brushes
• Utility Knife
• Ruler

1. Ok, we have all the materials, let’s get started.The fist thing you need to do is to Gesso all the clothes pins and popsicle sticks you will need to create this project.  I made twelve soldiers so I had to have 24 arms.

2. Set up a measuring template to measure the popsicle halves.  Each popsicle will give you two arms that are needed for either side of the clothes pin.  Each arm is exactly 1/2 the size of the full popsicle.

 

3. Once this is done you are ready to use the Gesso to give them a base coat.  This base coat will prevent your paint from absorbing into the wood.

4. Now that you have all of them measured and a base coat applied, you will need to use the cutters to cut the popsicle sticks in half.

5. Now you have a uniform length for the arms.  You will do this again for the length of the hands on the popsicle stick

6. You are going to need to measure the cuff for the hands on each arm.  This can be done  easily.  All you need to do is line up the top of the arms measure two arms and place one on the top of the line of arms and one at the bottom.  Line up your ruler and then mark with a pencil or marker all the way down to the last measured arm.

7. Paint each hand white on both sides and let dry. Then paint the rest of the arm red.  Again, on both sides.  Let dry.

 

 

 

 

 

8.  You can either paint a black line between the arm and hand or use a black marker.

9. Meanwhile you’re going to mix flesh.  It’s about time you learned any way.  Set up your plate so that you have a small amount of Red, Yellow, Blue and white.  Take your brush and apply a very, very, very small amount of red on the brush and mix it with the white…add a very small amount of yellow and 

then an even smaller amount of blue.  The Blue will tone down the orange   looking colour you had with the red and yellow….you should realize that if you adjust using the various colours you will eventually create a flesh tone.  The key is using small amounts first until you finally get the colour you wish.  Or you could go out and buy a “Flesh” which can make it a lot easier…me…..I like to make my own.

10. Now you can paint all the heads a flesh colour.

11. Make sure you sand down the arms where you cut them in two.  Also, sand down the rough edges between the legs of the clothes pin.

12. You now need to paint the pants black…yes I sanded down between the legs and the ends of the arms to get rid of the rough edges.  You will also need to paint a white line just at the top of the leg for the belt.

 

 

 

13. Now for the tedious part.  Putting the itty bitty google eyes on the face.  You will need a pair of tweezers to do this without getting glue all over yourself and the project.

 

 

 

 

14.  And now for the buttons.  Once again you need the tweezers.  I did buy a string of little gold beads and I just cut them off in lengths, then glued them on.

15. Let’s glue on the applets.  I had to glitter mine because I could not find glided trim at my local fabric store…dang!  So, I painted glue onto the trim and poured gold glitter over the trim.  Let it dry and poof….I have fancy applets.

16.  We are going to glue on the chin strap using the satin cord.  I used a 5.5 cm or 2 1/4 inch long piece for each head which was able to go all the way up to the top of the head on both sides.

17. Finally you can get that big black Pompom and place a lot of glue on the top of each head and glue the Pompom onto the head.  You’re going to need to attache some kind of cord, string, ribbon etc. to enable the ornament to be hung on the tree.  I used a clear plastic thin cord with a large needle.

You’re Done!!!