Monster Bash: Paper Nerdcrafts

Welcome to the last Monster Bash post for this week, which is about nerdcrafts. I love nerdcrafts. You can use them as activities for libraries or classrooms, birthday party fun, or if you're like me, you can just do them at home BECAUSE YOU WANT TO, DAMNIT. So as a part of Monster Bash, I'm going to try out a variety of nerdcrafts and recommend some that you might enjoy. Today, we're going to talk about papercrafts, because who doesn't like cutting and gluing things? (Except for the parts where you stab yourself and glue your fingers together, which I did in the making of this post, because I SACRIFICE FOR YOU.)

Anyway. One of the best things about papercrafts is that they're really inexpensive (as in FREE other than printing costs and possibly stitches), but they're still uber fun. So I went trolling the interwebs for monster-related papercrafts and found a lot of awesome.

• My Little Cthulhu plus paper equals fun?!
• Draculaura. In paper. My life is complete.
• No paper doll collection is complete without True Blood. (Please be forewarned. VISIBLE UNDERWEAR ALERT.)
• Monsters with moving parts! In paper! Woo!
• Little Monster paper dolls. Probably the only one here appropriate for little kids.

I decided to test out the My Little Cthulhu craft. In total, it took me about 45 minutes to print, cut out, and assemble. I started out using a glue stick, which worked really well on the larger parts, but the smaller pieces--like the legs--needed some school glue to make them stick. So it seems like a good idea to have a variety of glues on hand if your papercraft requires sticky stuff. The assembly was fairly complicated; with the exception of the Little Monster dolls, I probably would recommend these projects for teens.

So. How did my nerdcraft turn out? This is Carrie.

 Not even my Zombie Dance Crew shirt can fill the void in my heart.

 And here's Carrie with a Cthulhu papercraft!

My life is complete now. Cthulhu fhtagn!

I also have to give a shout out to the Etsy shop Artist in La-La Land, who does some HECKA GORGEOUS monster-themed papercrafts. Now that I have some idea of how tough it can be to make these things look like a five-year-old didn't make them, I have mad respect for this. You should totally check out her awesome shop!

Aaaaand, one last reminder that this whole Monster Bash thingy is all in celebration of my upcoming monsterrific releases! Leave a comment on any Monster Bash post and get entered to win a signed collection of all three books!