Rudolf’s long lost cousin – “Sparkle”

There’s a new reindeer in town and his nose ain’t red. It’s white. And ceramic. But he has just as much character as Ol’ Red and now (like R.dogdolf) a story that he can pass down to his grandkids too.

Sparkle is a relatively new Christmas decoration – I got him a few years back – but quickly became one of my faves. Allow me to introduce you…

Although I think this shot is funnier. Cue toddler hand stage right (or left?) I don’t know, I’m a designer, not an actress.

Anyway, what you may have noticed aside from the cute little hand and awesome reindeer is lack of antlers… or part lack. Sparkle is ‘placking’ (part-lacking – and yes, I just made that word up) antlers.

He actually placked antlers last year and got them fixed but this year when I pulled him out, he pulled another plack on me. Oh Sparkle…

You can see his previous scars and new breaks. Poor little Sparkle.

It didn’t even cross my mind to get rid of him because how can you turn your back on a ceramic reindeer in his time of need!? So, I put my thinking antlers cap on and decided that I’d glue him back together and add some… well, sparkle to hide his wounds.

Here is my arsenal of medical supplies.

I used the crazy glue (right) to piece Sparkle back together and lucky for me I had further plans because at this stage his gaps were more like crevices.

Yikes! So, I added some glitter to hide Sparkle’s scars. If you find yourself doing a similar surgery in the future I’d suggest making sure your glitter is ‘fine’ (see glitter pic above) versus the courser larger (old school) glitter. It creates more a shimmery effect and the pieces will stick better since they are more ‘powder like’ in consistency. Great for hiding boo boos.

I won’t bore you with the surgery details as I’m sure you have all applied glitter before. But it basically went like this – brush glue on, sprinkle on glitter, tap off, repeat. Don’t forget to do this over a paper plate so you can easily fold the plate in half creating a trough to pour your excess back into the glitter container.

After he rested in recovery Sparkle looked like this!

Dare I say I’m even more in love with him now?

And here he is taking his rightful place on my Christmas mantel (which I blogged about here).

What a cutie. I guess I should really call him Glitter now but we all know that that’s just a bad Mariah Carey movie so it wouldn’t be fair. Plus he looks like a ‘Sparkle”. Yes, my ceramic reindeer is a male. And I call him Sparkle. Could be worse?

{Non-hate clause: I actually like Mariah Carey}