A Charlie Brown Christmas

Some of you will remember the purchase of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree and the ensuing idea of creating the house, Snoopy, and Charlie Brown from a pile of styrofoam I had hanging around from all the items we ordered after we moved here. I didn't want to waste the styrofoam and, being an artist, I figured I could do something nice from it. If you don't remember the article, here it is.

The Kernel
I considered this to be the hardest of the three, so I began with it. At first, I wanted to glue different smaller pieces of styrofoam together, but the glue ate away at the styrofoam and didn't bind anything.

However, I figured I could use twigs to bind the two...and it worked.

I went away from putting together a bunch of small pieces of styrofoam and settled on using four larger pieces for walls; two large triangular ones for the roof support, and two large ones for the roof. I cut out the space for the door and put them together using twigs.

I wasn't worried too much by the ragged edges as the bright lights and decorations would take the attention away from that later on.

Next, I actually used tape to hold the pieces closer together as I planned to put the exhibit outside, and it had to weather the wind gusts common to the area.

I drew the lines across and wrote Snoopy at the front. I really didn't intend to keep the lines straight either...the decorations would take away from that.

Here's a video of the finished kernel.

Snoopy

The next in line to be created was Snoopy. I selected a large piece of styrofoam to draw him and then cut him out.











Charlie Brown

I wanted to make him taller than Snoopy, but it wouldn't have worked because I had drawn Snoopy about as high as the styrofoam piece was--which was the same height as the one I drew Charlie Brown on. So, I added an extra piece for his head, and a sm
aller piece for the tip of his cap.

















I put them together with twigs and reinforced them with tape.
The end result of the cutouts were like this.

The final exhibit through my patio window looks like this:

I would like to put them outside, but it's too windy and they are too flimsy...I have to figure out a way to make them stay, then maybe I will put them outside.




It was fun making this project, and I'm glad I got to put to use the styrofoam that would have been otherwise thrown away...I still have a lot left over, but I hope I have minimized the senseless waste of our resources...I hope I can come up with some other project so I don't have to waste these...makes me feel bad.
Merry Christmas, folks, and I wish you the best in the coming year.