Vintage Free Standing Thanksgiving Turkey Decoration

Good Tuesday Morning to you all!

Today I wanted to share a fun and easy holiday decorating idea with you that is soooo easy yet so very cool.

Vintage Free Standing

Thanksgiving Turkey

Decoration

Supplies:

Altered Pages Digital Collage Sheet - 335 Happy Thanksgiving

Chipboard

Adhesive

Brown Ink

Ink Blending Tool

Crystal Lacquer

Green Cardstock

Instructions:

1. Initially you will need to decide which image you'd like to turn into your free-standing decoration.  It needs to have a good solid base area to work with as this will be very important so it can stand up once it's finished.  Since Thanksgiving is next week I wanted to make something with a turkey in it so I choose the Turkey/Cart image from the AP Collage Sheet - Happy Thanksgiving.

2. Now you need to enlarge this image to the desired size of your decoration.  I made mine so it was approx. 1/2 the size of an 8.5x11" sheet of paper.   Make a copy of this image and flip it so that it is the mirror image of the original. 

3. Trim the image from the cardstock and mount on the chipboard.

4. Cut the upper portions of the cardstock/chipboard away.  You will see the decoration start to transform. 

Notice I didn't cut along the turkey's beard....I will take care of that later.

5. Glue both of the images back to back.  Since they are mirror images of the same size they should fit together perfectly!

6. Now if your image has small detailed areas such as the beard of the turkey I find it's easier to cut both sides at once so they match up perfectly.    I also left the final cut along the bottom until they were glued together as well. 

7. Once the image has been trimmed, ink all of the edges with ink - this not only adds to the vintage feel but it also helps disguise the double layer of chipboard as well.

8. Now this is just optional but I like to add a bit of detail to the image with Crystal Lacquer.  You will need to apply to one side, let it dry then flip and detail the second side.

You can see the wet CL details here...

9.  Now cover a small piece of chipboard (front & back) with green cardstock. 

10.  Trace a half moon shape on the chipboard and cut out.  This will be the "foot" or stand for your free-standing decoration.  Ink the edges in green.

11.  Normally you would just make a cut in both the image and foot/stand but since my chipboard decoration is so thick I actually had to notch out both the image and foot.

12.  Insert the foot/stand into the notch and your decoration is complete!

Pretty cool huh?

Now it's ready to be enhanced with additional free-standing decorations, a few silk leaves and a mini pumpkin or gourd and you've got yourself a dandy table centerpiece for your holiday meal!!