"Rudolph’s Basket"

Materials for Handle:
Handle – potato Masher: New or old wooden masher
Acrylic Paints – white, black, red, brown, tan
Brushes including liner brush

Preparation:
Paint entire wooden handle tan. Let paint dry. If you prefer, use an old red or green potato masher handle and paint Reindeer design on one of these leaving the color of the handle showing.

Construction:
Transfer design to handle. Print out reindeer; take a #2 pencil and "color" the back of this paper where the design is. (You are making a pencil stencil.) Cut out this design slightly larger so this will curve around the handle easier. Tape where you can to hold this in place.

Press firmly over the lines with an ink pen to transfer the design to the handle. Adjust the "rack" of Rudolph to fit the handle, which curves around to the back. You might have to take off some of the antler points to accommodate painting on the handle.

Paint eyes and chest white. Accent the chest with black and gray made by mixing black and white paint together. Paint Rudolph’s head brown, adding tan and black for shading. Outline in black. Add black paint for pupils for eyes. Add red for his nose and highlight white on the tip with a liner brush.

Paint antler rack in the back with brown and dark brown (or add black to brown).

Paint tail to left side of the body on the front of the masher; or another thought would be to paint on the tail on the back of the handle between the antler rack as if this is the view from the back side of your reindeer. Add white to left edge of the tail. Let dry. Optional – Spray or brush on in matte or gloss finish. Now you are ready to weave this fun basket for the Holidays!

Now that the painting is finished, please weave a basket around your cute hand painted masher! Please use the Masher Pattern featured in the Winter 2003 Issue of Just Patterns Magazine or wait until another cute pattern is designed for this one!

Copyright 2003
This pattern may be printed out for use, but may not be printed out in quantity for resale.

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