Santa Claus is coming to town

Hello All,

The Christmas cheer is hard to resist and once you start seeing Santa chocolates all round, it's hard not to infuse quilling into a Santa motif! :D (Honestly, these are all excuses! I have always wanted to try my hand at quilling a Santa Claus :D).......so, here goes and as always, a tutorial is here. This is not the best I am capable of but I have been swamped with things to do.....my patent is nearing publication, family is here and days are getting shorter. Most of the photos are also bad quality, so apologies in advance. I have been clicking with my camera, to save time of having to transfer from my camera memory card! :(

This is the best photo of the lot as I clicked it when we had a few hours of sunlight today :-)

Here starts:

I have used 80 gsm white and red papers and 130 gsm gold and black papers. The different weights are simply because I had these papers with me already! :) The papers (wherever required) were shredded using a Ryman manual paper shredder. The long strip in the photo is for making Santa's body. I had to join 20 of them end to end (total of about 6 m length) to get the desired diameter of the roll for Santa's suit. 16 of them end to end made his tummy roll. The roll for the cap and both sleeves were 8 and 6 strips, respectively.

I have used the quilling coach to make the rolls but you can make them with hand also.

Flatten them out after making them and this is how they will look.

With your fingers (or a 3Dquilling mold) shape the roll for Santa's suit and for his tummy. The one for his suit is the one on the left side and his tummy is to the right.

Fill the rolls with glue and spread it to cover all the inside of the domes. Allow to dry.

From a gold (or beige, if you  wish) paper, cut a small square (I used 1 cm by 1 cm)

Make two vertical slits about 1/3 of the length at 1/3rd the distance. I hope I am able to convey what I mean! Let me try it this way, if you divide the paper into 9 equal squares, cut along the opposite edges of the square in the centre.

Put a 3 mm black strip through one slit as shown

And then, through the next slit. This is how it will look then

Pull from the sides and this will be Santa's belt :)

Along the dome for Santa's suit, make a line of glue.

Now, paste a white strip along that line.

Line the lower edge of the dome with white as well and here is Santa's suit, nearly ready! You just need to paste the belt along the middle of the suit.

Now, paste the tummy dome under the suit dome. And this is how it will look :)

Now, the roll for the cap!
Using a pen or a quilling shaper (I can't remember where I found it from, I think it came free with some quilling supplies!), shape the dome for the cap.

Press the top slightly to reduce the sharpness of the tip. Make the 'sleeves' similarly.

Line the domes for sleeves similar to the dome for Santa's suit and paste the sleeves. I pasted the sleeves and went off to sleep, so they are a little lopsided! :D You can try doing the same at a more reasonable hour (and not midnight :D)!

Bend the dome for the cap and line the lower edge with white. I fringed a 3 mm white strip for making the pom-pom on top.

For Santa's hair, take about 7-8 cm long white strips and cut them lengthwise. You can avoid this step if the strips are like 1.5 mm thin. Mine are 3 mm strips and were too thick for the hair.

Curl the cut ends like this and leave them.

This is how they will look.

Here, I forgot to take the photos! :D But make a 8 strip flesh tint paper roll. and shape it for the face. I have used rolling eyes but you can also draw them with paint/pen. Position the face-roll into the cap such that there is a small slit open for inserting all the hair.

Make a 8 cm flesh tint paper tight roll. This will make the nose.

With 8 cm white strips, make loose coils, these will make the beard :) Paste the hair and beard to Santa's cap and chin, respectively.

And now, come the shoes! I have made a 3 strip (30 cm each) roll for the shoes. This has to be a tight coil.

This part is slightly tricky. To get a good 'boot' shape, I hold the roll with my thumbs under the roll and index fingers over the roll. I hold the roll tightly with my left thumb and index finger and press the roll with my right thumb. This way, only right side will 'pop-up'. And this is how the roll will look. The pop-up part is the front side of the boot. Now, press the roll sideways to make a boot like shape.

I cut a 2 cm red colour strip for making the legs. Using a needle tool, make a tight coil of this.

Paste a black strip on one end and white over the black. The black will be the boot and white will be the edge of Santa's pants. Paste this one the boot roll.

Paste the legs onto the body in a way that Santa is able to stand (it can take a while to get it right). Now, a free Santa is nearly ready! :)

Make two 1-strip tight coils, these will be his hands. Press them to make them oval.

Just as an add on, I made a small bell using a gold paper strip.

I pasted my Santa on the inside of a lid of a transparent box as this fellow has to (literally) travel from North Pole (Sweden) to a warmer and sunnier India :-) And guess what, he is even taking a small gift with him for the receiver :-)

You better not shout, you better not cry
You better not pout, I'm telling you why.......

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN!

Ho ho ho..........Merry Christmas

Submitting this to Make it Mondays challenge

Happy Quilling............

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)