Mad Scientist Monday #2: Fabric Chain of Ghosties

Day 174:

An exhausting but joyful last few days as we prep for birthday season around here~everyone except me is a September baby OY!  My youngest turned 11 today and we always decorate the house the night before so that when the girls wake up it is obnoxiously covered in crepe paper and signs and balloons.  But we had time to go out and pick up some fabric and wallpaper sample books from a fellow Freecycler and come up with our latest Halloween decoration and Mad Scientist creation.......

Let me first introduce you to one of our favorite mad scientist, Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz of Phineas and Ferb fame.  Someone who is always coming up with mad cap inventions because of bizarre backstories and trying to take over the Tri-State Area and then the world.  Funny one-liners galore. Credit

Here is the birthday girl, this is one of her signature looks that captures her attitude.

And this is her other look...oh man is she a spunky one.  Just ignore the massive amounts of library  books in the background the 3 of us girls have been on a reading kick of American Girl and James Patterson around here.

 On to today's Mad Scientist Monday creation......
Take one book of upholstery fabric samples~we just randomly chose a size and color we wanted...these are medium weight upholstery treated with some fun stain resistant chemical combo that makes them stiff...mmmm chemicals.....

Get the cat to help out by rolling around on whatever project  you are working on, if you are on the floor you should be paying attention to the cats right?!?...NOT HELPING SOKKA

For this project we cut each larger rectangle in half. Sample books come in so many different varieties and sizes just pick one you like!

I just free-sketched two different ghosties with pencil and then covered with lightly drawn Sharpie~it will bleed through on lighter fabrics so just cut on that line to get rid of it or use something else~I just love my Sharpies so I use them even when I shouldn't.  Hmm I seem to have channeled my inner Oogedy Boogedy Man on one of them...cool, happy accident!

Cut those out to use as your templates, trace as many as you want in the line, flip the templates every other one to get ghosts aligned in different directions 

Cut them all out.  Save your scraps for now.  I used the pinking shears just because.  I was thinking they looked spookier maybe?  Well they definitely hid the Sharpie lines!

Separate your Ghosties into different colors or patterns to make them easier to place in a line....that is my OCD crafting talking I can't have the same color or pattern in a row.  Seriously do what you want and how it makes you happiest to create!

Take the medium sized scraps you saved ( I trimmed them into vague rectangle like shapes.) and picking patterns/colors not like the ones next to it sew them behind the hands of the Ghosties.  I used a zig zag stitch because well I used pinking shears and it matched. I also just used whatever leftover thread was in the machine at the time.  Throw away the leftover scraps or if you are really crafty use them up!

Here they are laid out on the floor.  My fail for this project was hanging them up...I overestimated the stiffness of the fabric and they are slightly floppy so right now we are glueing popsicle sticks behind them to keep them upright.  Next time I might try sewing bias tape or yarn behind their heads but I wanted them to look like cut paper dolls and not have a line going through their heads.  I will put up a finished picture of these tomorrow after the glue dries and see how I like that.  

UPDATE: This morning I woke up to hang the Ghosties and I think they look exactly how I imagined!  YAY!  So here are the finishing touches to this project:

Adding a popsicle stick to the back really helped make the Ghosties work and look like the stiff paper dolls I  was inspired by.  I used Aleene' sTacky Glue and let them dry overnight.

Don't they look like the paper dolls of old this way?  Much better than having to string something through their heads to make them stay upright.

Ah yes look who I snapped a blurry picture of after I hung the Ghosties up and went to get the camera.  My minion Sokka decided that the push pin was the devil and needed to be brought down immediately, he hates push pins so I had to get the nip and lure him away to convince him to leave it be.

I love all the patterns together and they way they go different directions.

Hmm I think my camera is telling me it would like to be retired but it needs to work a little harder for a little while longer right now not all electronics are allowed to break down at one time ;)

Now that I have the floppy issue covered I am going to put together a couple more Chains of Ghosties for decorating!

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Overall I am very pleased over the howling moon with this project.  They will be a most excellent addition to our Halloween decorating!

See you tomorrow with Scenes from my Sketchbook....what will you create today?