I pimped Santa's ride! Sleigh makeover...

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!  :-)  Hard to believe it is finally here.  I wanted to share my sleigh makeover.  I was holding out for the last minute waiting for snow to take pictures but alas we are not having a white Christmas this year.  SO pouting about that.

Santa is all ready to load up the presents and be on his way!  

I didn't go completely black with the paint.  Partly because it was much too cold when I did this but when it was all put together, I liked the distressed look of it.  

I miss my parents every day, but especially at Christmas as they LOVED the holidays and we always had such magical celebrations!  My Dad made this sleigh years ago and it was always on the front porch full of evergreens or wrapped presents with a plaid blanket.  When I went to set it out this year, I realized it was looking pretty beat up.  Not an elegant shabby chic weathered look, it was really just a mess.

So I decided to give it a coat of black to achieve that Charles Dickens feel.  I liked the dark red and maroon plaid ribbon I used for the front door garlands and spray and decided to use it for the sleigh bells.

I knew I wanted a Santa Claus crest, I mean hey even Santa likes a monogram here and there!  I found this AMAZING Santa Claus oath Coat of Arms at www.clausnet.com.  It represents all of those people who "play" Santa Claus because we all know Santa is much too busy this time of year to be everywhere.

I used it for my inspiration for my crest below.  After about six sets of letters in different fonts and sizes, I found these to be perfectly perfect.  The font is from a company in the United Kingdom.  Lovely. 

I added sleigh bells with wire and ribbon.  I drilled two holes into the front panel and just wired the bells  onto the sleigh.  The bells are amazing and sound like the real thing.  I am very particular about my sleigh bells.  Every time I see a set of sleigh bells in the store I pick them up and jingle them.  They have to have that perfect jingle bell sound.  You totally know what I am talking about, right?

The crest was made the good old-fashioned way by tracing out a pattern and cutting it out of scrap booking paper.  I seriously felt like I was in second grade.  :-)

And I heard him explain as he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"