Last year my nephew requested a skeleton costume and I thought it was a perfect opportunity to use my Cricut Expression. The skeleton pattern came from the Everyday Paper Dolls Cartridge. I resized it to the length that would fit an old set of sweat pants & long sleeved shirt, by cutting a couple pieces and placing on the pants and shirt to ensure the right length. Using a few pieces of the white Cricut 12 x 24 paper I cut all the pieces of the skeleton, layed out the pieces on my fabric and cut out all the pieces. Once I was done I used the approx. four foot skeleton in my window for Halloween...waste not, want not! (In fact, my nephew still has it on his bedroom wall a year later.) I used white flannel, that I already had on hand, and applied fabric stabilizer to make it easier to manage. I attached the bones using the zigzag stitch, with a tight stitch setting, with my sewing machine. It washed beautifully and stood up to the wear and tear of a four year old.
NOTE: I chose not to cut the fabric using my cricut only because I was using flannel and the stabilizer paper wouldn't stick well enough to the mat for clean cutting. However, you may choose to cut the pattern directly on the fabric, but you will go through a lot of cutting mats because of the lint fabric leaves behind. I recoommend doing a test cut with the fabric of your choice before you decide which method you end up using for your project.
The one change I will make this year is to buy a pair of knit gloves or mittens, from the dollar store, and create finger bones. I will also add a removable flap to the bottom of each pant leg for the foot bones, that way they may be removed to avoid tripping when his shoes are off. The flap will lay over the top of his shoes and be held in place with a loop of elastic to go around the bottom of the shoe.
I used some white 3 mm fun foam to cut out the skull, black 3 mm fun foam for the eyes, brows, cheeks, nose & mouth and then attached it to a ball cap so he could see well at night...he LOVED IT and wore it for weeks afterwards. This year he wants to be a pirate skeleton...too bad he's grown so much....I have to start from scratch again, but that's okay...it gives me an excuse to use my new Brother sewing & embroidery machine. Yippe!
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