The Finished Santa Ornament

Yesterday I worked on the prize for the ornament giveaway.  (If you don't know what I'm talking about and/or haven't entered yet to win a one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted wooden Santa ornament, you can go back to my January 28 post and find out all the details.  And you might want to check out the January 29 post, too.)

I spent a couple of hours painting last evening and got about this far.

Then I decided I didn't like Santa's face very much, and also that I wanted to give the ornament an antique finish (because I just like things that look old).  So I kept tweaking it and adding layers of acrylic paint, and then when the paint job was completed to my satisfaction and the whole thing had been coated in shiny varnish, I added an antique gold cross.  As a final touch, I made a tiny string of pearls (wink wink) for Santa to hold--a great gift for some lucky gal on Christmas morning, am I right?  Here is the final product, which I hope will fill the lucky winner of this contest with the spirit of Christmas--even though he/she won't be able to hang it up for another ten months or so!

(This ornament is made of sturdy pine and is about 5 and 1/2 inches tall.)

Fortunately, I still have my lighted Christmas tree up, so I could hang this little guy and give you an idea of what he would look like on your tree.  There's still plenty of time to enter the contest, if you're interested!