Mini-Me Centre Pieces

This post is over a year and a half overdue - better late than never

My dad celebrated his 65th birthday and retirement.  Me and my siblings decided to throw him a party...

And any time there's a party, the first thing that comes to my mind is:  What can I MAKE??

I love the idea of personalizing decorations, whenever the opportunity presents itself.  And in this particular case, the opportunity was all up in my face.

My dad is hilarious.  He's always been a clown - maybe a little too vulgar for some people's taste, but always amusing, in my opinion.

When my sister and I found ourselves weaving the aisles of my favorite local wholesale warehouse, we asked ourselves "what can we make as centre pieces for the banquet tables", I had an A-HA moment.

"DAD!"

Yes, we decided to make centre pieces that look like my dad -- here's how I did it:

Head:

- Using a foam ball as the head, I used white glue and 'beige' coloured tissue paper and applied it similar to paper maché.  I chose this method over painting because the foam balls are too porous and would just absorb the paint.

- This was a very time consuming process, as I had to wait for each layer to dry before applying the next layer

Body:
- We bought 1 litre carafes as the base of the bodies, since the shape of the bottle kind of mimicked a human neck and shoulders
-  I created a template for the shirts, and using various colours of scrapbooking paper, I cut each one out individually and attached a separate piece for the collar
(My dad always wears Lacoste golf shirts)
- I filled the carafes with different coloured jelly beans

Finishing touches:
- Once the heads were dry, I drew smiley happy faces on them
- Glued ears to the sides of the heads using beige construction paper
- Put little glasses on each head (these were meant to be used for doll-making)
- Finished off each 'dad' with a tiny little Lacoste logo on the chest of the shirt

TA-DAAAAA!! The finished product (and the Birthday boy!)