Uncle Sam

First up, confession.  One of my favorite catalogs to browse for craft inspirations is Terry's Village.  A lot of their stuff is pretty kitschy, but it does get my mind going and has inspired a few of my creations.  My candlestick rabbits were inspired from there.  That being said, when I saw their Uncle Sam made from a balustrade, I loved it so much that I basically copied it exactly.

Here is the original, straight from the catalog.

And here is mine.  :)

Hehe....  the only difference being that I took a page out of Wendy's book and made it out of a table leg.  Also, the original was a garden stake, but I gave mine a base so that it could hang out on my front steps.

I just love him!  I think he is super cute!

My hubby asked if it was a little early to start decorating for Independence Day, but I didn't think so.  I LOVE the 4th of July! (as in my all time favorite holiday hands down)  So the fact that I can kinda get away with it just makes me super excited!

Do you need your own Uncle Sam?  If so, here is how I made mine.

Step 1:  Gather your supplies.  You will need a table leg, a square piece of wood for the base, a smaller square for the hat, 2 square blocks, a beard (I cut mine out of 1/4" plywood but craft foam would be a good substitute) hot glue, ribbon, a couple of wood screws and craft paint.

Step 2:  paint your red.  I painted the base, the bottom of the table leg, and one of the blocks.

Step 3:  Paint your blue.  I painted the rest of the table leg, and the smaller square.

Step 4:  Add your white.  I used painters tape and a vinyl stencil to add my stars and stripes.

Step 5:  Paint the last block flesh toned and paint your beard white.  I used a brown sharpie to draw in the definition on the beard before painting it white.  The brown sharpie bled through just enough to give me the look I wanted.  I also added a little nose to the beard.

Step 6:  I then took all the pieces out and gave it a bit of distressing with my sander.  This is optional of course. 

Step 7:  Time for assembly!  I used a couple of wood screws to attach my base to my table leg, but then just hot glued together the rest.

Step 8:  The last step is to add in the details.  I added a little mouth to the beard, eyes, painted on some eyebrows, and tied a bow around his neck.

And there you have it.  Uncle Sam!

And because its too cute not to share, while I was making this one of my little neighbors was over playing with my daughter.  She sat and watched me paint almost the whole time and then asked to get a picture with "the old man."  hehe



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