Demonstrating the mouth flap control.

Building the bag first, then attempting to attach the backpack was a mistake. I ended up crawling in and out, trying to perform operations in this cramped little space.

I should have built the Fandango face onto the plywood flap, then hung the paper bag around it like a curtain.

On Friday evening, 24 hours before the big contest, I glued the plywood into the bottom of the bag and prepared to finally assemble all the pieces of the face.

Unfortunately, I stepped inside the house at precisely the wrong moment. RAIN!

In a five-minute window, the clouds had gathered together and sprinkled just enough water on my paper bag to wrinkle and stain the giant paper bag! It was a disaster!

"French Duck!!" I shouted... Actually, I used the shorthand version.

The rain had been just the lightest sprinkling, but it was right on target. A roll of paper towels at the upper right corner of this photo remained dry. I couldn't believe my rotten luck!

I did what I could to blot the water off of the bag and dry off his face, praying the paper would recover.

Megan and Marc came by and brought some Zelda's pizza for dinner. Awesome! I felt better immediately.

I moved the monster inside so I could attach the black strands of paper that was to be his hair. I began pretty far back on the top of the head, and began gluing strips down one at a time.

If there was one thing I knew about vampires, it was that they have great hair, usually black, slicked back with a widow's peak.

It took almost two hours to get all the strips attached, but the hair looked great when it was finished! I was thrilled. 

Two wires threaded into the face to hold eyebrows on. The nose was attached in the same way.

The candy corn fangs mounted behind the front lip. I wrapped the wire on the wrong side, resulting in wires poking out of his lips.  I needed to fix that...