Taxidermy Moustache

Like many offices, our office does a Holiday gift exchange, but instead of a Secret Santa, we call ours Secret Satan, and aim to give our giftee something silly, ironic, or downright horrible (one of my coworkers got a preserved octopus in a jar, and another one got a live mouse, just to give you an idea). I have a really hard time being mean, so I decided to go the silly route and decided to make a faux taxidermy moustache! I think it turned out really well, and I think it's been long enough that I can finally reveal myself!

I didn't get pictures of all my materials, but it's pretty basic and it will vary a lot depending on what you have access to.

Here's my list of supplies and tools to get you started:

Supplies:

• Faux fur in the color of your choice
• googly eyes in the size of your choice (mine were 1")
• fake eyelashes (I wanted to make a girl moustache)
• wood plaque (you can make your own, or just use a piece of wood, but I got mine at a craft store. They also have them on amazon)
• wood stain in the color of your choice
• wood varnish in the finish of your choice
• ribbon in the color of your choice
• glue

Tools:

• paint brushes
• x-acto knife
• staple gun

Start by staining the plaque if you want to. Try the stain on the back first to make sure you like the color, then stain the whole thing. Make sure the stain has dried completely, then apply your varnish. I would recommend just following the instructions on your varnish, but generally, apply it in a thin coat in the direction of the wood grain.

I just free-handed my moustache based on the size of the wood plaque I was using, but you can print and trace a stencil if you want. The hardest part about this is cutting the fur. I used the tips and tricks in this instructable and used an x-acto knife to cut the back of the fur, making sure that the direction the fur lay was towards the bottom of the moustache.

I wanted to make sure this could be displayed proudly in a place of honor, so I attached a ribbon to the back with the staple gun. I put the ribbon facing down, staples the ends a few times, then flipped it up and stapled it a few more times to make sure it was really secure.

To attach the moustache to the plaque, I stapled the wrong side of the fabric to the plaque, then flipped it over and stapled the bottom part down, using the long fur to hide the staples.

I wanted this moustache to have a feminine look, so I used E6000 to glue eyelashes about 1/4 of the way down my eyeballs. You just need a small amount so I squeezed a little bit out on a paper towel and just ran the edge of the eyelashes through the glob of glue. Be careful when you are positioning the eyelashes because if you slide them around too much you will get globs of glue everywhere and the eyes won't look as good.

I experimented a little bit with eye placement before I glued them down and I would recommend this since it will really change the character of your moustache. There's no wrong way to do it, it just depends on what you want yours to look like.

Once you get a placement you like, glue them down with some more E6000. Don't put to much glue on them because it will squeeze out the sides of the googly eye and won't look as nice. Make sure you press down a lot so you're getting the glue all the way through all the hairs and not just glueing it to a few strands on the top!

Let it dry and you're done! Display it along with your many other hunting trophies!