by: mediagirl

Christmas is my favorite holiday and I have a lot of decorations, including a bunch of breakable ornaments for our tree. Last year I started thinking of a way to protect the tree and those ornaments from our one and a half year old. A friend mentioned she had made a Santa Fence years ago when her kids were small. She sent me a picture of it and I was sold. I found the same type of fence she used and modified the design a bit to meet our needs.

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Materials Needed:

15ft Rolled Picket Border Fence (I found mine at Lowes Hardware)
Red spray paint (2 cans)
1 skein of thick white yarn
Quilt batting
White cotton balls
Beige craft paint
Black paint pen
Painters Tape
3 in 1 Glue

Carefully roll the fence out. Fix any loose fence posts and try to get the wire as straight as possible across the top of the posts. Measure 5″ and 12″ down from the top of each fence post and mark those spots. Tape off the entire section. I didn’t tape off the entire 7″ section for the face and wish I had.

Stand the fence up and use the red spray paint to spray the front. You will need two coats of paint to completely cover the front of the fence. We did not paint the back and the way we stood it up around our tree, you really don’t notice the back.

Once the fence is dry, find an area where you can lay the fence down and leave it for a period of time, if needed. This project took me 2 days so I put cardboard down in our garage and laid the spray-painted fence on top of it.

Remove the painters tape from the fence posts. Measure 5″ and 12″ down from the top of the posts again to double check your earlier measurements and then use the beige craft paint to paint between those measurements. Paint the front and sides of each fence post.

While waiting for the craft paint to dry, cut out 2″ x 5″ sections of the quilt batting to create the Santa hat. Take the yarn and cut out 5″ lengths of yarn. You will need approximately 15 5″ lengths of yarn for each beard.

The amount of decorated fence posts is up to you. I measured the space my fence would be in and decorated every fence post that would be seen in the front and on the sides of our tree. The length of the beards is also up to you. I found after storing for a year, some of the beards unraveled at the bottom, so I spent some time trimming them up this year when I put it up for display.

Once the paint has dried, attach the quilt batting to the top of each painted section with 3 in 1 glue. Wrap the batting around the post so it secures in the back – this gives it a seamless look.

Attach the yarn to the fence posts. Squeeze the glue onto the fence post and place each strand of yarn on the post separately. After a few tries, I found this gives the best overall look.

Add a dot of glue to the top of the fence post and attach a cotton ball. Then, use the paint pen to draw two eyes on each post, about 1/4″ below the quilt batting.

This project was fun and I was so excited to pull it out again this year. It was the most talked about decoration in our house last year at our annual holiday party!