Boo it Yourself!

It is time to deck the crypt!
Vintage Halloween stuff is really hard to come by and it never is at a thrifty price.
So I say Boo it Yourself!

  I have this adorable accordion Beistle cat image saved on my Halloween Pinterest Board and have been studying it for well over a year, trying to figure out how I could reproduce it.  The accordion parts were giving me the problem.

Tuscarora!

 I am happy to say that I came up with a easy, affordable and cute solution!

It is not exact, but I am very pleased with the results.  

 The solution was found by coming across the jolly fellow seen below.   I must have those limbs! They were the key pieces I had been missing!  I found him and three other different color appendaged characters at Dollar Tree.  There are white, green, purple and orange available for dismembering.  (See them all here: "Hanging Honeycomb Halloween Characters")  The arms and legs are really long and you may even be able to make two projects by cutting them in half.  I don't do well taking photos along the way while I am making something so I will have to talk you through most of it.  

1. Go buy goofy pumpkin scarecrow dude at Dollar Tree. Dismember his limbs.  Then chunk his wretched remains into the recycle can.

  

2.  Print out the below image at full page.  

If the resolution is not to your liking, go to my Halloween Board for the original. 

3.  Cut out the cat's head and scarf.

4.  Use the hand and foot pieces as a template.  Cut out two of each from black card stock.

5.  Make the body from black cardstock. The body is the trickiest part.  I traced the body from the photocopy and then realized I did not account for the original body accordion material that was folded up. So the first one I made (seen above) looks like he is "husky" and wearing a crop top.  I made another longer body that was about 9 inches.  I still don't think I quite nailed the torso just yet but i can certainly live with it!

  6.Glue cat's head to the top of black cardstock torso.

7..  Paint the hair and nails on to the black cardstock feet and hands using an off white acrylic paint to mimic the look as seen on the photocopy.  For cohesiveness I painted hair on the body since I didn't have accordion material for the chest and he needed something going on there.

8. Hot glue feet to legs and hands to arms, then leg bone connected to the hip bone and arm bone connected to the shoulder bone.

9.  Hole punch where original hole was on his noggin.

10.  Done and hang!

There are several other images out there on the nets of vintage accordion characters (skeleton, witch, scarecrow) that could have this same treatment applied.

I am now excited thinking what other accordion characters I could make with the other colors.  Universal Monsters could work well.  I was thinking that a Creature from the Black Lagoon with the green.  Bride of Frankenstein with the white.  The only image needed is the head and the rest can be cardstock with a little detail paint.  I could even make one of PB and Hubs!