Igor and Frankie

Meet little Igor and his sister Frankie, the latest additions to our Smith family.

My daughter suggested that I make a little baby monster, so I did one better and made a big sister too. Igor actually made his first appearance on the sixth day of Creepmas. 

Igor’s older sister Frankie, was named after Dr. Frankenstein who created their parents. She has the same basic body as the mummy, but the paper roll is trimmed an inch shorter since she’s just started hitting her growth spurt. 

Her hair is made from one of my daughter’s old leg warmers, and bits of sweater. I didn’t like the way the ends of the leg warmer looked so I made a few cuts and unraveled the yarn until I got to the pretty cable knit. I folded and glued thin strips of the sweater into the grooves between the cable knit. The leg warmer wasn’t as stiff as the fake fur so I stuffed some paper towel into the center. I glued the curly unraveled bits that I had cut off around to make bangs and also on top to fill in the center and hide the paper towel.

Frankie just got her neck bolts this past month, which are covered in black glitter glue with rhinestones on the ends. All her friends have had theirs forever, retro bolts are so in right now, but her horribly old fashioned parents, who seem to have been created for the sole purpose of embarrassing her, made her wait until her 13th birthday.

She also has her mother’s fun fur eyelashes.


Igor was named after the obstetrician Igorina, who delivered him. Igorina’s are fabulous in the delivery room, it doesn’t matter if the baby is born with the prerequisite number of fingers and toes or not, she’s quite handy with spare parts, needle and thread. He’s a half size paper roll with a rounded paper towel ball top and bottom. I wanted him to be able to stand on his own without any feet, so I taped a decorative flat marble (pictured) to his bottom. Once I gave him hair, that wasn’t enough to keep him stable, but a bottle cap (not pictured) taped over the marble was and didn’t add a lot of bulk.

And here is the happy family altogether.

Creepmas Nativites

I thought it wouldn't be right for me to poke at other people's nativities without doing one of my own. I did throw it together at the last minute, but it has all the major players. 

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (at least that's the name they tried checking in at the inn with) and their little baby. The ghost angel, the three wise mummies and of course the witch and pirate shepherds. 

I had found a bunch of creepy nativity scenes, but then I found an awesome site by Eric Pazdziora and he's already done most of my finds, plus a whole lot more with better commentary than I would've come up with. They aren't all creepy, some are tacky, some are just bizarre, but all are worth a gander. Behold his collection of Sock Monkey Nativity Scenes. 

There is one that he missed but you can see it in all it's glory at Craftastrophe.

In case you don't click through all his other nativity collections, although it would be a shame not to, and you miss it, I'm reposting this link to The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas. It brought me to tears, in a good way.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Meet the newest addition to our toilet paper roll family, Peter & Madeline Smith. Named for the actors that played Dr. Frankenstein's monster and his love interest in Young Frankenstein.
I would  have assumed a monster would inherit its creator's surname, but in this case they prefer the anonymity. There tends to be a lot less angry villagers with pitchforks and open flames when the "Smith's" move into the neighborhood. 

For the body basics check out my TP Mummy. 

To give his shoes platform soles, I cut out two pairs of feet using the template and filled the space in-between with an inch wide loop of cereal box cardboard for support. Then I surrounded that with paper clay and after that dried, I applied a thin layer of air dry clay and used a comb to give it texture. After I painted it I applied an acrylic varnish.  I do foresee the possibility that the air dry clay could chip off, I'll just have to see. 

There is an awesome wolf head tutorial over at 102 Wicked Things To Do.  I'll pause while you go check it out.  Incredible isn't it?

There is some great advice on working with fake fur such as combing a part before you cut and making sure the fur is laying in the right direction.  Nothing earth shattering, but it's exactly the type of thing I wouldn't think of on my own until I was halfway through butchering a project.
Probably doesn't matter much for the few inches of fur I used, but I did follow her advice while working on Madeline's hair piece. 

Mrs. Smith's hair sections were stapled together wrong side out, the bottom edge was hot glued under and then I turn the whole thing right side out and tucked the top into itself. I just happened to have some black fur and a few scraps of white on hand, but I think she would look just as awesome with an updo of any kind of thickly textured fabric, like a heavy corduroy or cable knit.

Her eyelashes were a last minute touch, made of the same fun fur used for the dream catchers.  I like the way it looks and will definitely be pairing it up with googly eyes again in the future.

Update: To see the latest additions to the family check out Igor and Frankie.