🐒 Monkeys Paw 💀 Halloween Decoration

Monkeys Paw

So this isn't a food thing I know but I thought I would share since it turned out so well. Here is the process I used to turn some novelty salad spoons into a Monkeys Paw.

I started with one of the salad spoon things and I sawed off the end at the joint to shorten the arm. I used a seratted knife to score around the joint then just snapped it over my knee pretty easily. Monkey and ape hands have thumbs much lower on their wrist so I did the same thing with the thumb. I scored around the joint area where it meets the rest of the skeleton and snapped it off. Then I shaped the fingers and blunted them with a razor and sand paper. Then it was time to reattach the thumb in the proper place. I consulted Google for pictures to get a better idea of where the thumb joint should be and then I hot glued it on and beaded more hot glue in layers to make it look seamless.

Next I spent some time wrapping the whole thing in floral tape and paying special attention to the thumb so as to reenforce it. There was also some spots that needed to be filled in to make it look like a mummified hand not a painted skeleton so I just used pieces of paper and the floral tape to flesh it out a bit and make it look right. Again it's good to consult pictures of the item you want it to look like to get a better feel.

Next is the paint. It's best to use a different brown Brown and a lighter brown than the fur you are going to use later. Plain old acrylic is fine and it's okay to not paint it too well. Let some of the green show through just a shade in parts for the dead look. Next is attaching the fur. This is tricky and I ended up using hot glue instead of Elmer's. But be careful cause the hot glue will melt the floral tape as well so be sure to put the glue on the back side of the fur then press the fur to the arm. This helps keep the glue out of the fuzzy parts. And a single piece of fur won't wrap right and will be lumpy in a bad way. So if you have long shaggy fur you can piece together patches without showing the seams where they fit.  

After that you are done. I chose to mount this in a candle holder in a bell jar for atmosphere.