Krampus and Devil Bump Chenille DIY

Welcome to my first post on the new blog! It's not fancy, but I wanted to post this DIY in a place where I can get more in depth than on Instagram. I posted a video of my Santa vs Devil tree in my stories a while back and was asked if I would do a DIY on how I made my little bump chenille devils. They're super easy and anyone can do them in bed with their cats locked out. Cats love pipe cleaners, so craft with cats at your own risk! I made these last year when I first did a larger scale Santa vs Devil theme, but didn't have many devils besides my Kamar knee hugger. They are inspired by a vintage Santa pipe cleaner craft that someone made back in the day, which I would eventually find at an estate sale many decades later. This was originally a craft that I did just for myself. I used vintage images that I found on the internet and I don't own any of them. I've created a file to share with you so that you can easily print them out and craft along, but this is for personal use only, please!

What you'll need to make these are:

• Bump chenille in red and/or black 
• Wire cutter
• Hot glue gun + sticks
• Scissors
• Devil and/or Krampus heads printed on cardstock and cut out
• Glitter pipe cleaners to make chains for Krampus and devil trident
• Red velvet ribbon to cut out bag shape for Krampus
• Small sticks or something that looks like a whip, get creative! 
• Optional: small bells for Krampus

Bump chenille tends to be harder to find in big box craft stores for some reason, which is why I ended up buying it on Amazon. You can use regular pipe cleaners, but the bump chenille is cuter and gives a vintage vibe that can't be beat! Here's a link to some suggestions to make this craft with Prime. Full disclosure: I get a small commission from items purchased through this link.  If you're up for a treasure hunt, the Dollar Tree often has glitter pipe cleaners, and of course you can get most everything to make this from any big box craft store, but then you have to put on pants.

To start, I printed the images at Staples on 100 lb cardstock to get a high quality print on a sturdy paper so that these last for years to come. If you print at home, make sure to get a nice, heavy cardstock so that the heads don't bend or curl. Since it is Christmas season, a lot of people are printing cards last minute, which seems to affect how quickly they print orders. It is cheaper at my store to order online and pick up the print in store vs going to the store to upload and print there. It took 2 days for them to get to my print job, so keep that in mind for your craft session. If you're doing this post Christmas, they're usually pretty quick. If your store is anything like mine, make sure to remind them in the special instructions section to use cardstock because they have printed every single order I've placed on regular paper until I started leaving special instructions. They aren't paid to read through order details I guess, but they seem to notice when someone puts an extra note.  

Once you've got your heads printed, it's time to cut them out. This takes forever and your hand will probably hurt after cutting out hundreds, thousands, millions of heads. It's a great time to rewatch the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina to get in the mood for the sinister crafting to come. That Yuletide special is an instant Christmas classic, right?!

You've made it through cutting out a zillion heads, congratulations! Now it's time to get down to business. Grab your wire cutter and start cutting up the bumps. I used one bump each for the body, arms and legs. Trim past the bump, about halfway through the narrow part on each side. The small end will be the neck where you will glue the head and a tail on the bottom end.  

Wrap the "neck" around the arm bump once, but leave enough space to glue the head.

Do the same with the legs on the opposite end. You can use the excess narrow part of the body to create a tail. Or naughty bits if you're so inclined, it's your craft! You can use the scraps of velvet ribbon or cardstock to create a triangle for the tip of the tail and color it red somehow. Maybe you're already a fancy crafter and have red cardstock on hand. Go you! Or maybe you want to use some glitter pipe cleaner for added flair. If you don't want a tail, you can just wrap it around the legs more and cut off any extra. If you want to give a cloven appearance to the feet, bend them to resemble hooves.

If you haven't done so already, glue on the head. Now you can make the accessories. Cut a length of glitter pipe cleaner that you think looks good next to the devil and another to wrap around and bend it to create a trident shape. Some devils have big tridents, some have small ones, some are average, but they're all overcompensating for something. Maybe they had a traumatic childhood and need a spectacular weapon to guard them from the harsh world. Their fate is in your hands. Wrap the bump hand around and it you're ready for a devil of a good time! If you're making Krampus, you can cut a sack shape out of velvet ribbon or whatever you think looks good on a bad guy. If you have little plastic babies lying around, you could make a sack filled with real pretend babies and he'll be so happy! Wrap some glitter pipe cleaner around it and attach it to the very tedious chain you'll also want to make from the glitter. Cut small lengths of the glitter and wrap them around each other like you would a paper chain. Twist each length to secure and form a ring shape. This would be a great task for someone with small, nimble fingers! Drape that across his body and add some kind of whip to one of his hands. I cut pieces off of my cinnamon broom from Halloween. Last year I used left over pieces of black fringe from my leg lamp project that I rolled up with hot glue. Make use of what you have so things don't go to waste! Now he's ready for a night on the town punishing naughty children. 

That's all you need to do! Now repeat as many times as you can stand. Good luck and warm wishes for this holiday season!