Fabric Deer Head: The Mount

I finally had some time to work on the mount for my friend's fabric deer head. My brother was visiting so I took advantage of his wood working skills.

First thing I did was find a shield shape. I used the elegant design from this website. I enlarged it in Publisher, but you could do the same thing with a copy machine. We decided on 14" tall and 12" wide. I had to tile it to print it - four pieces of paper that I taped together. 

We went to Home Depot and, rather than buy a big piece of wood, I purchased a round table top for around $7. This is simply a bunch of pine boards glued together. Here's a tip...look at several and go for the one that has the most long strips of wood and the fewest knots; avoid the ones that have lots of end pieces. Why? It's easier to cut!


 





Here we are testing out the size. Looks great!

Here's our table top with the shield design on top. We used some temporary adhesive to glue it in place. BTW, play around with placement. I lined up the top and bottom points with the glued joint in the wood so it was even.

My brother cut it out and sanded all the edges. I drilled two sets of holes. The top set are for the wire that's stuffed into the softie. The bottom two are for embroidery floss that I'll sew to the bottom part of the deer head to stabilize it.






Next up...paint. I chose turquoise - it stands out and matches the nursery.

Once I sprayed a few coats of paint, I hammered a sawtooth picture hanger to the back/top.

I had to use pliers to bend the wire back once I got it through the holes. To hold the head in place, I threaded embroidery floss through the bottom hole, through the deer, and back through the other hole. I threaded the excess thread through a big button and tied it off. 

It looks so cute it Bo's room!