Skeletons Take Flight: How to...

The dollar store can provide so much inspiration. Right now Halloween has taken hold and there are lots of goodies to find there. I found these awesome plastic skeletons that I knew I just had to do something with. Halloween is my favorite holiday, so doing a craft was definitely a must!

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Supplies

Supplies

Plastic Skeletons

Plastic bats

String or hemp

Fishing line

Hot glue gun and glue

Stick

Scissors

The fishing line, hot glue gun, scissors, and string I had in my craft supply. The stick I found outside and the plastic skeletons and bats I found at the dollar store. So all in all this only cost me 3$ and some change. Also note that you could make the bats out of construction paper. That is what I had originally planned, but saw such cute and glittery bats at the dollar store that I just couldn't pass them up.

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Step 1:

Make a miniature broom. I used the stick, hemp and hot glue for this project. This little broom was great for my flying skeletons but would also be adorable for a tiny witch (barbie maybe). I started by wrapping the hemp around my four fingers of my left hand. Figures show the steps to making the broom. Cutting the circle of string at the top and bottom, so that it made two equal piles of string, about 2 inches or so. I temporarily tied each of these bundles in the middle so that they were easier to work with.

I next glued one bundle to the end on my stick. The stick was about 8 inches long, but feel free to modify. I glued the second bundle to the opposite side of the stick. You can see me holding the two bundles while my glue dries in the picture below. This way I was able to have full coverage around the stick without individually sticking each string on my brom. I untied my knots that were keeping my bundles together.

Finally, I wrapped another piece of hemp around where I had hot glued the hemp to the stick. This not only covers the hot glue used to stick the hemp to the stick but also makes it look more finished. I used a length that allowed me to wrap the hemp around my broom about 5 or 6 times. Now I have a homemade miniature broom!

Step 2:

Cut and hot glue the skeletons. The skeletons I got were about 6 inches tall, and designed as garland. The legs moved at the hip joint and the skulls moved on the spine. Otherwise the skeleton was stiff. The plastic was thin enough that I could cut it. That is what I did to achieve the look I wanted. For an easier project, keep the skeletons as is and hot glue the pelvis to the homemade broom. You can easily create a skeleton that is riding the broomstick, with little effort.

The look I wanted to go for was a skeleton holding on for dear "life" to a flying broomstick. So I cut the left arm off the first skeleton, and I glued the left hand to the broom at a slight angle (see bottom right picture above) and the other end of the arm back into the arm socket. I made sure the arm was angled up, like the skeleton was reaching for something. The right arm and legs were soft enough that I could bend them into positions I liked, like bending the knees of the legs.

The second skeleton, I also cut the arms off of at the shoulder joints. I glued the arms in a upward reaching position. Once that was dry I glued the hands of the second skeleton to the right foot of the first, as if the skeleton was trying to hold down the first.

Step 3:

Attach the fishing line. I tied a length of fishing line to each end of the broomstick. You could hang your skeletons with just this piece of fishing line. I also tied another piece of line to the right foot of the bottom skeleton. This allowed me to tilt the skeletons so that they really looked like they were in motion. The fishing line was tied around a couple of nails but command hooks would be another non-invasive option.

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Step 4:

Cut and glue a third skeleton. For my second piece I wanted a skeleton to be wrangling a bunch of bats. To start I took a third skeleton from my dollar store pack, and cut off the arms. I glued them back to it's shoulders so that the arms were reaching upwards.

Step 5:

Tie hemp around bats. The dollar store bats had a clip attached to the bottom which made it easy to tie the hemp around them. I crisscrossed the string around the bat's back and made a knot on the bottom side. I used four bats but feel free to do as many as you wish. I cut the hemp string at different lengths so the bats would not be the same length when everything was hung up. The strings were about 8-10 inches long.

Step 6:

Tie and glue hemp around skeleton's hands. Two of the ends of the hemp I wrapped around the left skeleton's hand and used hot glue on the palm to secure it. I did the same with the second two ends of string and the skeleton's right hand.

Step 7:

Tie fishing line to the bats. I used two pieces of fishing line. One for the left hand side of the skeleton and one on the right. One end of the fishing line was attached to each of the bats. It was easy enough to tie the fishing line to the hemp but you could also tie it around the bat itself. I again hung the fishing line from nails but command hooks would work well for this project. Below are my finished products in front of a black background. The background makes them a little more spooky!

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Here are the final products in the day time! Hope this inspires you to be creative this Halloween!