Life and times of old St. Nick

So I downloaded a set of vintage sepia-toned St. Nicholas images from my favorite eBay purveyor of such, phenomenon1859. (Go there! You can download beautiful images for very little money, and print them out as you need them!) Then I was wondering what to do with it. Card? Collage art? Not this time; I wanted to wear Nicholas. After all, he is one of the greatest icons of the season and I wanted to honor the historical him. Hmmmm...yes, badge! But where to find the right size backing? Of course--the kitchen! There was a jar of Chinese mustard that I don't even want to think about how long it's been part of the fridge furniture; I knew it was time to let go. The lid was just the perfect size for my use.

Some hoarded tissue paper for the base, an application of Mod Podge, and my Nicholas was taking form. I needed some felt and embroidery floss anyway, so did a run to our neighborhood Beverly's, and spent a whole 68 cents. While there I found some discarded sequins on the floor and a castoff silk leaf in the wastebasket next to their wreath making station. Whooo! Not too proud to beg! One of the sequins ended up in the collage, on the Believe tag. A snipped tiny edge of the leaf gave me just the right little touch of greenery. The snowflake is part of a piece of paper doily someone discarded on the front porch of our apartment building. I just dropped some glitter on it and sprinkled a little more on the edge of the badge. A smattering of Stardust Stickles, another layer of Podge on top of the paper items, and I was done.

Now for the fastener. I could've spent more $ on pin backs, but that wouldn't be very Bag Lady, now would it? Instead I hot glued a safety pin onto the back, and covered it with a little strip of green felt.

Here's how it turned out:



I wore it to church yesterday and to a Christmas party last night. What holly, jolly fun!

Cost: 25 cents for the felt, of which I used maybe a penny's worth; the ink for the printouts; $1.85 for the image sheets, which I will use in dozens of ways since I got many images for the price and it works out to maybe a nickel apiece in the end; a dab of Podge and hot glue. Altogether, less than a buck.

Santa-sfaction factor: Oh please, who can measure the Christmas spirit?