DIY Faux Taxidermy | Wire Deer Head Pinterest Project

 
 
 
Project 26 of 74

Finally!  I’m back to post my Pinterest challenge project!  I was away for a funeral for a while and had to get back to regular life and catch up and of course it took me much longer than I wanted it too.  Anyway…

So I’m totally into this faux taxidermy trend.  I kind of love it and hope it sticks around forever.  In Sawyer’s nursery I have a pair of antlers (not faux…they’re the real deal) that I bought at a thrift store for $4 and spray painted white.   This is a pic from this post:

I also found a little porcelain cow bust at a thrift store for $3 that is now hanging on the wall in my master.  This is a pic of it from this post:

So even though I already have a couple of animals hanging on my walls, I couldn’t help but want to get some more!

For the Pinterest Challenge I went into my DIY folder and purused my past pins.  When I saw this image

I thought it would be the perfect project!  I was fully aware of course that my DIY Faux Taxidermy would most likely be uglier than this but I thought I’d give it a shot anyway.  Maybe the ugliness would add to the charm. :)

So off to Home Depot I went in search of some wire.

Heres the breakdown:

Cost:  About $6

Supplies:

  • Plenty of 16 Ga. Dark Annealed Wire (I bought the 2lb reel).  OKay.  So now that this project is done, I can tell you I HATE THIS WIRE for this project.  It is too stiff and hard to shape and really beat up my hands and fingers!  I suggest a covered clothesline wire or floral wire.  I saw some colored floral wire at the Dollar Store and am going to try it out again with that I think.  But, for the sake of accuracy in the tutorial, I used the 16 Ga. wire from Home Depot for this project.
  • Wire cutters.
  • Pliers or jewelry tools are helpful for twisting the wire ends.
And thats it.  Simple and cheap.  Now the fun part…
1.  The first thing I did was make a wire circle to use as my base.  Depending on how large you want your animal head you can determine the size of your base.  I also was sure to add a little loop up at the top of the base for hanging.
As you can see from the pics above, this wire made it hard to keep smooth and straight so my faux deer head turned out a lot more wobbly looking than the inspiration pic.  I just convince myself it adds charm.
2.  The next thing I did was build a neck.  I used 4 equal lengths of wire and attached them to the base.  I curved them slightly so that they weren’t sticking straight out of the base but concave in a bit as a neck of an animal does.  Then I made another circle (slightly smaller than the base circle) and attached it to the ends of the neck wires.
3.  Then I started building the head.  Following somewhat my inspiration pic, I built the head using curving pieces.  First, one coming up from the neck to form the chin piece, then two others curving down from the top of the head to the chin piece.
4.  Next I added a long piece of wire that connects all three of those new parts together.
5.  Then I added another wire that curved a bit and came down forming the front of the face from the base of the neck to under the chin.
6.  See how its starting to kinda look like something?  Even if it is a little whompy.  ;)  Then I added a couple more curvy piece to either side on the center wire on the face and made and added ears.  From here you could probably make this into a variety of different horned creatures.  Although I originally wanted to copy the inspiration image and make swirly cool horns like that, after several attempts, it just wasn’t working for me and I decided to make my little guy a deer instead.  Maybe if I had used easier wire, I could’ve done it.  Meh.  Another day…
7.  Next I made the antlers.  To do this I took two really long pieces of wire cut to the same length.  I folded them in half (at the same time), and started forming the “branches” up the sides of each.  Then I pulled them apart and attached them to the top of the head inside each ear.  I had to mess with them a bit to get them to look somewhat symmetrical.
8.  Then I stepped back and took a look and decided the face needed a little more so I added a cross wire across the nose of the face and also decided to give him nostrils.   This was the finished result!
What do you think?!  Like I said, not nearly as pretty as my inspiration Pin but I love him nonetheless. Just take my advice, get some really good wire cutters and really pliable wire if you decided to do this one!
And thats it!  Thats my first Pinterest Challenge project!  YAY!  I’m sure there will be many more to come.
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