The Cross of Coronado From Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Hello everybody, its been a long time since I`ve published an instructable, so I`m probably out of practice, but I`ll do my best:)

My sister and I watched the third movie of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade a couple of weeks ago, and the cross immediately caught our attention. I make movie props at home as a hobby, so we started thinking what it could possibly be made out of. Wood most likely. But then I saw that Instructables had recently put on a paper contest, and we thought, that`s it! So that`s what we made it out of, stacks of paper. The only boring part was the cutting, cutting, cutting. But the rest of it was fun. I hope you all enjoy it, now let`s get started!:)

The materials you`ll need are,

Stacks of copy paper

Elmers glue stick

A couple of heavy books

Gold metallic paint

Paint brush

Blue glass or plastic gems

Hot glue gun

Parchment paper

Brass chain

Fine tipped black ink pen

Clear nail polish

Charcoal pencil

Pencil

Ruler

I`m sorry I can`t give you the cross picture in a pdf file, but my computer does not support adobe reader, which is really a pain. I`ve given you the link to the website that the picture is on below. Save it and print it in any size you like. After printing it cut it out. Trace it as many times as you can on one sheet of paper. We got six on ours. Then put it in your copy machine and print out a whole stack of them. Next take the paper you just copied, find something round that will fit inside the cross, we used a nail file, and trace around it, in all four ends of the cross, as shown above. Copy those again, only copy a few more, because the the top layer has to be a bit thicker than the bottom .

https://www.behance.net/gallery/10134793/Indiana-Jones-MacGuffins

Next proceed to cut everything out. It`ll take awhile. My sister and I cut for half the day until our fingers were nearly permanently bent around the scissor handles. :D Now start gluing the bottom half together.As soon as it starts to get thicker place it on a flat surface and stack a couple of heavy books on top. Leave it for an hour or so, otherwise it`ll start to warp. Meanwhile, start gluing the top half. Place it under the books as well and resume gluing the bottom half. Continue in this way until all the paper is used up. I don`t how many pieces of paper we used, but it doesn`t really matter. It all depends on how thick you want it. Now, take the top and bottom pieces and glue them both together. Then stack the heavy books on top and leave them, preferably overnight so that they become straight and very hard.

Now you need a hole in which to place the chain ring. Using a pencil, mark a spot in the middle close to the edge at the top of the cross. Next, drill a hole on the spot using the smallest drill bit there probably is. But drill very slowly, or you`ll trash the paper.

Now it`s time to paint it. I have a few gold paints so it was hard to choose. I chose the one second to the left, called "Bright Gold". None of us were happy with the result. So we tried the left on instead, called "Classic Gold". Much better, it looked more like gold. Add a few coats to cover up everything and make sure you put a lot of paint into the sides to fill up the paper cracks a bit.

Put a gold ring through the hole at the top of the cross and close it with a couple of pliers.

Mark a spot on the ends of the cross and glue on the blue gems.

I didn`t have any pearls, so I made some. With the hot glue gun make some small dots of glue on the parchment paper, twirling it at the end to avoid any strings. When they`re dry peel them off the paper and glue them to the ends of the cross, three on each side. I didn`t paint the pearls, because they looked more natural the way they were, and looked more like the picture. But feel free to paint them.

Now, using the ruler and the charcoal pencil, make some straight lines on all sides of the cross, close to the edges. Draw a half circle around the ends. Then outline the pencil lines with the fine tipped pen. It has to be a charcoal pen, a regular pencil won`t show up, and it just digs into the paint.

Do the same with the letters. I have no idea what the letters mean, they`re probably Latin. I couldn`t find the translation anywhere. Just find a picture online of the cross and copy them. For the flower in the middle, take the ruler, and make four small lines at the corners in the middle the same length. Draw a small circle in the middle touching the four lines. Then add the petals. That part was a bit hard to get all the petals the same size. It`s a bit crooked, but ah well. :)

Almost finished! Just make sure the pen is completely dry before applying the nail polish. Add a few coats to make it really glossy, and let dry. Thread the brass chain through the top ring and, you`re done!!

That`s it everybody. and we hope you enjoyed this instructable!

Feel free to ask any questions and we will do our best to answer them. Cheers!!