Finally Finished with My Own St. Nick!

I have a collection of Santas that I keep on display during the Christmas season at my front door and needed a Christmas themed piece of art to hang over it.  I thought about it for years and toyed with either painting a canvas or a banner.  I decided on a banner because it's easier to store, so I started painting this banner two years ago and got as far as the red checkered boarder with green trim.  Last year I painted a Santa on that I wasn't thrilled about, so again, it sat in my craft armoire for another 11 months. 

 

After teaching my Craft Night for Moms and painting traditional Santas, I decided that I wanted him on this banner, so I painted over the original one and finally finished! 

Yippee for me!!

Mamas' Night to Craft and Get Crazy!

This was so much fun...7 moms carefully crafted an heirloom traditional style Santa Banner for their families.  It's funny to hear them start out stating they are not artists and can't imagine that what they will create will be anything they will want to display in their house...

but give them instructions, guide them along (and help them remove their paint brush from their wine glass every now and again!) they have created a charming Christmas Decoration!  The brush in the wine glass thing happens every now and again...I am guilty of putting my in my cup of coffee!

I decided to paint the canvases black to give it an old world feel and the Santa design reflects St. Nicholas with a basket of simple gifts and a tree design I found a few years ago on the internet.  You can see him hanging in the mirror below!

Ta da!  My friend Jacqueline is a whiz at making bows and made these huge ones for all!

Here's a close up...

This was lots of fun and everyone was so impressed with how theirs turned out!  Great job, ladies!