 We just turned this little nutcracker into this life-size nutcracker from porch leaner. I'll show you how we did it right now. What is up? A welcome back. Do you like to do it builder or make it? So do we. And we have a new video each week. This week, we're making ourselves a life-size nutcracker. Big enough to be my buddy. Yes, I'm so, so excited about this project. I have been wanting to do this project for at least two years. I first mentioned it, I don't know, maybe even three years ago, and it just wasn't, it just didn't seem feasible. Well, fast forward, our skills have improved. We keep stepping out of our own comfort zone here, and we're always doing something new and kind of crazy. And this week, we will be building a life-size nutcracker. It's going to be using our fence pickets like we do and always do for our leaners. Keeping it cheap. And he's still going to be a leaner. He's just going to be, well, six foot pickets are already life-sized, but this guy's a little taller than six feet because his hat's going to extend above those pickets a little bit. It's kind of like our big bunny. If you've ever seen our big bunny, it's going to be a big guy. Yeah, he's going to be big, and he's going to stand there. And I want two of them. I want them to stand on either side of my front door. Big burly bodyguards at the front door. Yeah, I am so excited about it. So I can't wait to show you what we've designed so we can get it painted. And we're going to bring this guy this size. Yeah, he's going to be this size. Yeah, we'll be back. Step one, we're going to gather all of our supplies. We needed two six foot dog ear fence pickets. They're the big ones. They're 5.5 inches wide. We're going to need one little gothic picket. This is going to be for our braces. Then we're going to need some quarter inch MDF. I have a sheet right here. We'll need some glue and some brad nails and paint. And paint. Well, and one more thing. One more thing. Some glitter. We're going to glitter this little guy and he's going to be sparkly. Glitter bottle. Now we're going to cut our file and we're going to make our kit. But if you don't have a laser and you want to purchase this kit, we will have this kit available in our store. Now, no, this is the biggest kit we've ever made. The last biggest kit we ever made was our stacked gnome leaner for the fall. Well, we have one opted. This one dwarfs that one. We have one opted. And this is going to be, I'm not even sure. I don't even sure, I'm not even sure what size box this thing is going to go in. But I'm excited about it. So if you're brave enough to make your own nutcracker, you're going to have to make sure you send us some pictures because I really want to see yours and see how you painted it. See your color scheme. Yeah. Step two. We're going to make all of our cuts. We're going to start by cutting this picket into three 11-inch pieces. Now, the great thing about these porch leaners is that you don't have to touch those six-foot pickets. They're going to be used as is. And I'm just going to do a little reminder. Get the premium fence pickets. They're smoother. You don't want those rough cut ones. They're just a little bit thinner. And they're harder to paint, harder to work with. So get the premium pickets. And then for this Gothic picket, these are the only cuts you have to make. And what are we making these cuts with, Garrett? Our friendly friend, the pocket saw. I can take this guy anywhere with me. He is small enough to fit in my pocket. We do get questions about it. We call it pocket saw, but what this is is a seven and a quarter inch Ryobi saw. And I know this is right here at Christmas time. So this is a great gift for your crafter, hobbyist. It's a great, you see, we make most of the things, most of our cuts on this saw. Very rarely do we need to go to the big saw out in the warehouse. So it's a great little gift item. Ouch. Got me. Take three cuts. We used to just put a brace at the top and the bottom, but we found over time, sometimes these pickets warp and you're going to want that center brace in the back, just the whole things, so they don't shift as they dry in age over time. And with this guy, we're probably going to want the whole thing pretty even. So third pickets. Yes, that'll make sure there's no, there's any warped pickets. This will kind of help straighten that center section out. I'm going to bring the quarter inch MBF over to our OM Tech laser and cut out the rest of our design. We're going to assemble the backer. We're going to glue these little pickets on the back and then we're going to hit it with an inch and a quarter brad. The nail, not the guy. Now these three are all going to go on the back of the pickets because we need the face nice and flat for all of our MDF pieces. Time to paint. But we're not going to paint with this brush. We're going to paint with these foam rollers. So we're using these little four inch foam rollers. You can get these at your local home improvement store along with these little handles and we'll be using this exterior house paint. Now the great thing about these pickets is they're already pressure treated. You can use any acrylic paint. We typically use exterior house paints for all of our door rounds and our vertical porch cleaners. Anything that goes outside. Yes. We're going to paint the MBF and the backer using that exterior house paint. Look, it's not as bad as we originally, as maybe I made it sound. There's a stack here with his jacket and his drum. And there's a stack with his hat and his face. And all his accessories. Yeah. All his accoutrements. So it's not too bad. It just, I think you think it's a lot because it's big. Once you see it. Yeah. Once you see it. It's going to be big. It's going to be big. It's going to be big. The pickets need to be painted in sections to match his uniform. So the boots are 16 inches up from the bottom and will be painted black. The pants will be painted blue and they are 14 inches up from the boots. The jacket will be painted red and that's 20 inches up from the pants. His face will be painted kind of a peachy color and that's 11 inches up from the jacket. And the rest of it is hat and that will be painted in this blue, same blue color as his pants. Time to assemble. We're going to use some wood glue and a little bit of star bond. This will hold it forever. This will hold it for now to start laying down all of our little painted MDF pieces on some of the stubborn pieces. We're just going to put a little three quarter inch bread in there. The nail, not the guy, just to hold it in place. Now, if you don't have a bread nailer, you can always use the gorilla glue, the original gorilla glue. It does swell and get kind of foamy underneath so it will fill in any gaps. You can always use the gorilla glue liquid nails. This stuff is great and it doesn't get foamy. Have it on the ready. Yeah. I love this stuff. Yeah, so keep that in mind when you're ever putting together these, with these pickets, these vertical porch liners with the pickets, you can use either of those glues instead of the nails. You just have to let it sit for a lot longer. But we're trying to get it done so that I can stand it up and show you. So that's why we're going to use this star bond to help keep it there really quickly. It'll keep it there. And we're going to start from the top. Nope. We're going to start from the bottom and work our way to the top. Yes. And I say that almost always on our signs and everything, bottom up. Bottom up. Bottoms up. Bottoms up. All right, what'd you guys think? Think he would be taller than me? I knew he was going to be taller than me. Look at that guy. Look at that tip up there. He's got to be like six foot eight. It's awesome. It is exactly what I envisioned. It is exactly what I wanted. I can't wait to put it on my front porch. I can't wait to put it next to my door. What do you think about the drum? You like the drum? You like the arms or no arms? We are really split on the arms or no arms. It came down to a coin toss. Arms won. And look, can you believe? It's just two pickets. Remember, it's just two pickets. Two pickets, an NBF and some paint. Look at that. It would be good. Pretty good. Super impressed. Our patrons are also pretty good. Actually, they're pretty awesome. We love them. We love you guys. We know you're watching. That's right, that's right, that's right. And our Patreon Zoom call is coming up like right around the corner again, right? It feels like it feels like it's the third Wednesday of every month. It's the first of December. We got a minute. I'm waiting for them. And we are about out of time. I have to make another one of these so that we can bring it to the fraction. All right? I don't think. No, please no, please no. It's too tall for balance indoors. I have to do it outside.