A white elephant party is a tradition among my friends every year around Christmas. If you are unfamiliar with this kind of party I direct you to the
Wikipedia article, which has the general gist of it. Through the course of the year, we develop many inside jokes as we socialize... not the least of which pertain to the movies we have seen as a group. Last year
The Golden Compass and
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole were popular material for being so very bad, far from the books they follow, and in the latters case, simply having a terrible, terribly long name.
Naturally I had to get one of these movies for the white elephant party gift. A movie by itself is fine, but we all expect a little more from one another, something to make it scandalous, hilarious or pointless. In the past, a dvd jacket has been slid from the original (often bad) movie to cover an even worse movie. I decided to use a bit of skill to make a silly addition to the movie, something to remind everyone even when the offending dvd is tucked away.
I found these ornaments at a local World Market. They were perfect; an owl for my present and a polar bear for me. One common thread in both movies is that the animals felt that wearing armor was the height of fashion. So, using an old paper grocery bag I began to fashion paper armor for these two.
For the Owl, I followed the movie's depiction of a helmet kind of thing to cover eyes and beak and the deadly claw armor for the foot.
And for the Bear, following it's movie as well I created a face mask connecting to tank-like plates of armor along the back and spine.
After a bit of puffy sparkly paint was added for decorations, I attached the armor to the animals with a bit of invisible thread. For the bear it was important to add a hole for the hanging string to poke through so it could be hung on an actual tree.
Shiny and majestic in their armor, they went off to new homes.
