Making Sally! Making Sally!

Feel free to sing the title of this post to the tune of “Making Christmas!” like I did while working on this progress. 🙂
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKAxikZmY-0

Ever since I started making Jack I had a funny feeling I would feel the need to make a Sally to go with him. Jack was time consuming for sure, but not terribly difficult. Paper mache and wire, for the most part so easy enough. Sally needed to have real limbs and a face. Plus, Jack is heavy and difficult to move around because of his construction so I knew I wanted Sally to be more plush, yet pose-able.

Visions and ideas swarmed in my mind. I ran downstairs in our storage room and out to our garage to see what things I could use. I grabbed a pillow, pillow cases, an old duvet, PVC and packing tape. I knew I needed to act fast if I wanted Andy’s assistance with his power tools before he left on his work trip. Nothing too crazy, I can handle the saw and the drill for the most part but I cannot cut the 9 gauge wire myself. 🙁 Guess I better workout with Jack!

I started by wrapping my upper body as much as I could on my own with the packing tape. (For easy removal do the first layer sticky side up!) When I got to my shoulders I had to ask my husband to help. I could tell he was thinking “What in the world….???” But by now he knows better than to ask and instead just lends a helpful hand. We wrapped maybe 2-3 layers. I didn’t want a really dense form, I want it to be a little flexible.

Different kind of body wrap!

We cut it up the back and taped the seam with more tape. Easy!

Tape Body Form

I am going to work on the overall shape; Sally’s not a stick figure but she also doesn’t have a post-baby body and smooshed boobs. Shouldn’t be too difficult to fix though.

Pillow for filling

Sally’s Body Base

I measured the PVC and cut it to size for a spine, drilled holes for the wire arms and legs then shoved the PVC through the middle of the pillow and threaded the wire through the tape form/pillow/PVC.

For Sally’s oddly colored skin I decided to dye a couple small swatches of the pillow cases with a big bowl of water and a few drops of food coloring. I can’t ever tell if her skin is blue or green so I used a couple drops of each until I got a color I was happy with.

Kinda green, kinda blue, good enough for me. 🙂

Then, I got on Amazon and ordered the following:

Sassy Sally Costume

The mere thought of trying to find the right fabrics and sew a real dress stressed me out so I figured this was the way to go. Plus it comes with a wig, which I will need. Not sure about the arm things…maybe I’ll use them, maybe I won’t. We shall see.

Styrofoam Head

Jack’s head is heavy so I decided to try something else other than paper mache. Here’s hoping that works out!

Gloves

I also want Sally to have working hands & fingers like jack but I am NOT up to trying to sew my own hands. Hopefully I can match the dye good enough to the other “skin”…I was too impatient to wait to do it all at once, oops! 🙂 Luckily since she’s kind of a rag doll I figure it’s okay if she’s not perfect.

The hardest part is going to be the head & face. I’m still thinking about the best way to go about it. The rest of this project should come together fairly quickly. I’ll keep you posted!