The Zombie Santa Project – part three

Drum roll please!

Here is our zombie Santa.  I’ve attached more pictures at the end of the blog with links to the blog post at that stage so you can see the progress as well as the finished product.  In last week’s picture you see a zombie in a plain red outfit that looks like pajamas.  It is amazing what a few trimmings will do.

Zombie Santa!

We added the all-important hat which was created by my hubbie, Scott.  He glued some of our light cotton fabric into a cone then glued a short length of pipe cleaner into it, both to make the hat flop forward (instead of standing up like a wizard hat) and to have something to glue the pom-pom to.  He formed the pom-pom out of a tiny bit of bunting or pillow stuffing I had laying around.

I trimmed the Santa suit with narrow strips of white felt attached with glue.  Super easy!  However, if you know anything about zombies, you know that pristine white and the undead do not go together.  I experimented a little bit with dirtying up the various materials and ended up having fun with a cup of coffee, a set of children’s watercolor paints, a red “painting” marker, and a tiny paint brush.  I dabbed the coffee lightly on the white felt to make it unevenly brownish.  I also smeared some of the red paint marker on the white on the cuffs of his sleeves and on his chest because we all know zombies eat raw flesh.  (Yuck.  Is this post really about Santa?)  Then I used the both brown and black watercolors on the red parts of the suit to darken and stain.  The end result is dirty but still recognizable as a Santa suit.

If you’ve read the other posts you know we were wondering whether to add a beard.  We decided against it because if we cover his face he just looks like a filthy Santa.  Plus, what is the likelihood he would keep his fake beard if he was eating all that…never mind.

My mom was looking at our Santa collection last weekend.  When we introduced her to zombie Santa she said “You guys are crazy.”  But she approved of our craftiness and ingenuity in creating a Santa that will have a special memory of 2012 for our whole family.

Happy Holidays!

Materials with the plastic zombie toy.

Zombie in his base red suit without the trimmings.