Tutorial: Santa's Flight Diorama

Santa's Flight Diorama

This project was visualized in my mind the INSTANT the *FABULOUS* Tresea at ReeseDixon.com posted her Spooky Bird Diorama for Halloween.  I loved it immediately, but since I do not tend to decorate for Halloween I immedately thought "CHRISTMAS!!!!"

Her post has more detailed step-by-step directions, as well as a great video tutorial, so be sure to check it out if you need more details than I am giving here. 

Materials:

• acrylic paints
• acrylic paint "float" or "dry extender"
• 8" x 8" unfinished wood shadowbox
• glittered card stock
• Santa sticker
• brushes
• glitter
• Elmer's glue

Directions:
First, you need to decide what you'd like your sky to look like.  Your choice of colors will create the "ambiance" you are looking for.  I was looking for a "night sky with a city glow" kind of look - so I chose a dark navy blue, a medium denim blue and an ivory. 

The goal here will be to use the floating medium to blend the colors together to create a pretty gradient.  The addition of the float medium allows you to create that gentle blending with very little work.  Tresa explains this really well in her video.

Once I was finished with the sky, I used a small pinhead to add dots in the darker area of the sky to simulate twinkling stars.  I let it dry a bit and painted the frame black.  I chose to paint it black because it seems to add quite a bit more depth. 

While all the paint is drying, cut out your "scene" for the bottom.  I used a thick black glittered card stock and cut a random roof top design.  I can see this with a forest of tiny little bottle brush trees, even!

 

Once everything was cut out, I added white glitter to the rooftops to represent snow.  You totally don't have to do that.  Let it dry really well so you don't smear it while adding it to your shadow box.

 

 OH!  When you are cutting out your scene, be sure to leave some extra on the sides and bottom that you can fold into tabs.  These tabs will be where you apply glue to hold in your scene. 

 Here I am trying to demonstrate that I put the scene in about a half an inch away from the back, thus creating more depth. 

All that's left to do is add your Santa.  I found this great sticker in the scrap booking section of the craft store and I love that Santa isn't a silhouette so he really shines!