Want to make a Rudolf wellington boot Christmas decoration unlike any other? A smashing festive ornament, who you can help adoring.

To make a welly Rudolf you will need…
4 pairs of kids old wellies. Unless you are best friends with Snowhite and the seven dwarfs, I suggest that you look for wellies at your local car boot. You can pick up kids old wellingtons for around 20p to 75p. Don’t be afraid to haggle. Try to pick wellies that don’t have a raised image on the side, as this will show up on Rudolf later. I used wellies sized 10, 10, 7 and 3 (UK child sizes) Get what you can but try to get wellies of a similar size.

You will also need…
Thick card (the side of a grocery box is ideal) gold spray paint, string, newspaper, 2 glass stones, a red Christmas bauble, and Evo-Stick timebond adhesive or another glue which will stick rubber.

Firstly, give the wellies a good wash. Glue and paint wont stick properly with dirt in the way.

Arrange Rudolf’s legs.
Use the smallest pair of wellingtons for the forelegs. Stand the boots side by side and make two small holes in both boots on the inside leg part. The holes in the boots need to line up. Apply some glue to stick the boots together and thread some string through the holes to tie the boots together for extra support. Keep the threading and ting of string invisible by doing it on the inside of the boots. It is a bit of a fiddle, but is important.

Use a pair of sized 10 boots for the hind legs. Put the heels together and the toes apart, just wide enough to nestle the forelegs in between. Make holes ready for tying the boots together as you did before and glue the hind legs together at the heel and to the forelegs wherever they touch. Tie the boots securely with string invisibly on the inside.

Leave the welly structure to dry for 24 hours before continuing.

To make Rudolf’s back and tuffty tail, take a sized 10 boot and cut it down the back seam in a straight line. If you use a knife for this part, be very careful not to cut yourself. Cut a triangle wedge from the heel of the boot. This is to remove the stiff rubber that shapes the heel because it is too stiff to work with.

Stick Rudolf’s back onto his legs.
Open the split that you cut at the back of the boot and slot over the tops of the legs with the toe of the back boot pointing upwards. Bring the top edge of the back boot round to the front legs. Make small holes in these corner flaps and in the front wellies at the tops and stick the back boot into place and thread string into the holes that you made and tie securely. These knots will be on the outside of the structure but will be covered later.

The neck and lower head.
With the other sized 10 boot, cut the back seam of the boot again but this time only cut down to the top of the heal shaping. Turn the boot upside down and open the back split, slot the boot over the top of the front legs, with the shaping of the heel resting on Rudolf’s back. Glue into place and anchor with parcel tape to hold the position until the glue dries. You may find that it helps to leave Rudolf to dry for 24 hours on his size. Remove the tape once the glue is dry.

Rudolf’s head.
With a sized 7 welly cut down the front and back seams of the welly to the top of the heel and foot shaping. Cut ear shapes from the two flaps that you have just created.

Cut out two simple but chunky antlers from thick card. Do not put bends in the cardboard structure as you cut the antlers out. Make the antlers wider at the bottom, this help support the antlers later.

Push the antlers into the ‘head’ boot so that the base of the antler touches the sole of the boot. Scrunch up a sheet of newspaper and push it between the antlers to separate them and to wedge them in.

Make tow small cuts to form an ‘X’ in the toe of the boot and cut the flaps of the X away for make a circle ready to add the nose later.

Stick the top of Rudolf’s head to the rest of the structure and leave to dry.
Spray paint the reindeer gold. Read the back of the paint tin and follow the manufacture’s advice of how to use the spray paint. Give the reindeer a coupe of coats of paint and be sure to cover all the nooks and crannies.
When the paint is completely dry, pull the end off the Christmas bauble and stick it into place with the bauble stork pushed through the hole in Rudolf’s nose. Finally, stick two glass stones in place for Rudolf’s eyes.

Rudolf can be scaled up to make a garden decoration by using adult wellingtons. Put a brick or stones inside each of Rudolf’s feet to prevent him from falling over or blowing away in the wind.
Because the dimensions of adult’s boots are different to children’s boots, a large Rudolf’s back legs can be positioned in a similar fashion to the front legs.

Paint and use a small ball for the nose. Half and paint a Ping-Pong ball for his eyes and fashion antlers from Wire coat hangers and bind with tinsel.

S. Roberts write for http://www.santaspostbag.co.uk a free educational resource packed with creative things to do and make including traditional, religious & 21-century activities. Visit http://www.santaspostbag.co.uk/christmas-wellington-boot-rudolf.html to see photos. SantasPostbag is in association with http://www.bigboystoyz.com Together keeping Christmas magical.

I think it’s time for all of us to admit that we were incorrect in labeling Randy Johnson as worthless to the Yankees’ starting rotation. While his start to the season was without a doubt absolutely awful, better yet, his first 2 months were awful, I think we’ll be seeing the old Randy Johnson for the rest of the season. If his past two starts are any indication of how well The Unit will be pitching for the Yankees down the stretch, then I think it’s hard to find a team that matches our front three of Johnson, Mussina, Wang. I’m not saying that R.J. is going to go out there every night and strike out 12 guys a game, and stifle the other team’s offense every start, but I will say that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of the Big Nasty that we were all accustomed to seeing in the past.

Although the Yankees dropped their third in a row last night, Randy Johnson pitched a pretty good game against a very good Phillies offense. The defense didn’t help Randy out much, as Robinson Cano’s error led to two Philadelphia runs. With his setback start against the Oakland Athletics withstanding, Randy Johnson’s ERA in his last four starts has been 3.33. He stroke out 25 batters in those four games, and he has been working pretty efficiently on the mound, and giving the Yankees plenty of innings. Throughout his career, The Big Unit has always started off slowly. His ERA in the opening months of April and May is more than a half a run higher than later in the season. I’m not saying that he is going to be as dominant as before, but we’re definitely going to be seeing improvement as the year goes on, as he perennially has improved as the season has progressed, and this year is not some sort of strange anomaly.

After the All-Star break, Randy Johnson has always been even better in the beginning of the year, as his ERA goes considerably down, the number of strikeouts goes up, and the number of hits he allows goes considerably down as well. Randy was pretty awful in the beginning of the year, and on average, throughout the course of his career, his beginning of the year statistics have paled in comparison to what he puts up for his team as the season progresses. Let’s not fret Yankees fans; although the Big Unit may be getting old, there have been years in which he hasn’t pitched as well as people expected him to. In 2003 with the Diamondbacks, he put up an ERA of 4.26; the next year, he came back and posted an ERA of 2.60 for a full season. In 1998 with the Mariners, Randy had an ERA of 4.33, and then after getting traded to the Astros, after the All-Star break, The Unit went on an absolute tear posting a 1.28 ERA and going 10-1 in the process.

Randy may have had a slow start to the season, but he usually saves his best for last.

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