Upcycled Christmas Globe

10 November

Many years ago, I saw where someone had put one of those small plastic Santas with the sleigh and reindeer on top of a globe like he was traveling around the world delivering packages and I thought it was so clever.

I've had that in the back of my mind for years thinking that if I ever find one of those vintage Santa sleigh figurines I would make my own version.

Unfortunately, I haven't found one. But I'm tired of waiting, I'm going to improvise and create my own version.

I picked up this small world globe some time ago at Goodwill for $1.99 and thought it would be a good candidate for my experimentation.

Upcycled Christmas Globe

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Supplies needed:

Small world globe
Paint (if you want to paint the base of the globe)
Rub 'n Buff (if you want to paint any metal pieces)
Paintbrush
Glitter
Mod Podge to adhere the glitter
Bottlebrush trees in various sizes
E6000 glue
Santa and Sleigh image (or vintage plastic Santa and Sleigh figurine)
Cardstock and glue stick (if needed for backing on a paper image)
Cricut and white self-adhesive vinyl (for the words)

This is the globe that I picked up at Goodwill. I really liked that it was black instead of the traditional blue colors. I thought it went well with the Santa Claus theme since Santa delivers packages at night 😁

This is not an old globe, it's a Better Homes & Gardens one, probably from Walmart.

I removed the globe so that I could paint the base and the arm.

I painted the base white and used antique gold Rub n' Buff on the little arm and top piece.

Then I gathered up a bunch of little bottle brush trees in different sizes and colors.

And glued them all around the base with E6000 glue.

Once the glue had dried, I used a paintbrush and added Mod Podge all around the base and tree bases. Then sprinkled it all with white glitter. I added some to the trees as well.

In hindsight, I wish I would have painted the bases of all the trees white.

Now, here's where the improvisation happened.

Even though I didn't have a plastic Santa and sleigh, I still wanted that on my globe so I found an image online of a vintage Christmas card that had it and printed it out in the size I needed.

Then I cut it out with an X-acto knife.

Since it was just printed on computer paper, I wanted to stiffen it up a little bit so I glued it to a piece of black cardstock with a glue stick and then cut around the image again, leaving a little border.

I ended up not liking the black cardstock against the black globe so I backed it again with white cardstock (not shown here).

I glued him to the globe with little pieces of wood as spacers so he looked more 3D than just gluing him directly to the globe.

Next, I used my Cricut and cut out the words "Joy to the World" in white vinyl. If you don't have a Cricut, you could use stickers or paint the words directly onto the globe. The world needs a little joy right now, don't you agree?