Finished Object: Claus and Effect



Mr. and Mrs. Claus have been a part of my Christmas since my earliest memory. My mother would set up the display in front of the piano by the front door - Santa warming his backside in front of the wood-burning stove, Mrs. Claus sitting on a child-sized wood & rattan chair.

Mostly paper mache and standing about 2 1/2' tall, they originally came from a florist’s holiday window display, and were purchased by my uncle in the late '50s/early '60s.

I’ve always been fond of them, though they were mistreated most of their lives by being hauled up into an attic and left there for most of the year. Bugs live in attics. Bugs that like to eat paper.

Did you know paper mache was mainly paper??

In repairing these figures, I tried to retain the the original work of what gives the characters their personality, so I didn’t do any work on the skin tones or non-hair facial features.

Here’s a close-up of Mrs. Claus from the front


(note the lack of eyelashes)

And again from the back


(and major bald spots in her hair)

The first step I took in repairing them was to purchase a new can of matte white latex paint. Behr’s Polar White was a pretty good match.

I applied a fresh coat of paint to her chair



Glued what remained of her original hair back to her scalp over the bald spots, painted the hair (which sealed in and strengthened what remained of her hair), and finished it with clear glitter that I sprinkled over a diluted all-purpose glue that I brushed over the areas I wanted the glitter to stick.


(The Conair hair dressing apron helped to keep the glitter from sticking to her clothes)

For her eyelashes, I used matte-finish white tissue paper.





One figure down, one to go.


(The “wood burning stove” only required minor paint touch-up)

Mr. Claus shared many of the same problems, and had the additional burden of a broken arm.



Fortunately his nightgown is not a true finished garment



so I was able to reach in and peel back the sleeve fabric, revealing that his arm wasn’t truly broken, but was removed from its original “socket”.



I played with the arm placement until I found the best match for the paper tears, and temporarily held it with glued strips of tissue.



And then secured it with multiple layers of glued muslin strips.



With the arm fixed, I turned my attention to the hair and beard



and finished up with glitter.



Unfortunately my seemingly minor fixes changed Santa’s center of balance, which was never that good, as you can see from this photo.



While I tried to put his arm back in its original position, I didn’t have an earlier reference photo to ensure that. And all that new paint on his head made him more top-heavy. Our solution was to make felt lifts



which I then glued to the bottoms of his slippers



Mr. Claus needed some new eyelashes, too.



Next year I’ll spend some time trying to clean/brighten the clothing and trim, but Christmas is rapidly approaching, and I’ve got other holiday-specific deadlines that are demanding attention. And I wanted to get the couple into their unheated new home so the sub-zero winter nights would kill any buggies that remained. So for this holiday season, Mr. and Mrs. Claus are officially open for business.