By Jessica Wilson
My name is Jessica and I was (am?) a child of the 80s. From legwarmers to jelly shoes to crimped hair, I was there. To make matters more, um, substantial; I was a valley girl. Yep folks, I not only grew up during the 80s, I did so in the San Fernando Valley, a hop skip and a jump from the Sherman Oaks Galleria and Van Nuys Blvd of yore.
I remember when frozen yogurt hit the streets and video arcades started popping up all over. My personal game of choice was Sinistar (Run coward! Run!), but I did love to watch my older cousin rock it on Ms. Pac-Man for hours at a time on just ONE QUARTER! She was that good. So for my contribution to this month of geekery, I present to you a lickety-split, super easy and all together handy Ms. Pac-Man (and ghost) inspired screen cloth cleaning kit for keeping your computer screen speck-free.
Materials
1 yellow microfiber/flannel dust cloth
1 microfiber dust mit/glove aka pet grooming mit
Felt scraps in black, white, red, aqua and bright pink
Scissors
Scrap paper
Bowl or cup, 5″ diameter (or a compass)
Pen
Needle & thread and sewing machine
Tacky or other fabric/craft glue
Button (optional)
Mini spray mister
Directions
Step 1: To create a pattern for your Ms. Pac-Man, trace or create a 5″ circle using a bowl or compass onto a piece of scrap paper. Use your scissors to cut the pattern out.
Step 2: Fold your paper circle into quarters and open it up again. Pick one of the quarters of the circle and cut out with your scissors.
Step 3: Grab your yellow cloth and fold into quarters or thirds, depending on how large it is. You will want three or four layers as large as your circle. Pin your Ms. Pac-Man pattern to the layers.
Step 4: Bring to your sewing machine and stitch all the way around the pattern using a smallish running stitch. Don’t forget to backstitch at the beginning and end to keep threads in place. If you choose to stitch her by hand, use a whip-stitch and stitch all the way around the cut pieces.
Step 5: With a pair of fabric scissors, cut out your happy Pac-Man shape and return to your machine. Switch to a medium zig-zag and go back around the edges of your shape. This will keep your edges less raw if you are using a flannel cloth.
Step 6: Now it’s time to turn your Pac-Man into a Ms. Pac-Man. Gather up your felt scraps and cut yourself a red square 2″ around. Trim into a circle shape and cut in half. Set aside. This will be her mouth.
Step 7: For the eye, trim your black and aqua scraps into squares about one inch around. Trim those squares into circles. Cut a small wedge out of the black circle and glue on top of the blue with a dab o’ glue.
Step 8: Next up, shape a small circle from a black square of felt about a quarter of an inch around. This will be her fabulous beauty mark.
Step 9: The last feature you need is her bow. Cut a rectangle out of the red felt that measures about 1″ x 2″. Cut in half to create two squares. Cut one square in half while removing a smaller square from the other. Arrange into a bow shape and use your fabric glue to fix the three pieces together.
Step 10: Beginning with Ms. Pac-Man’s mouth, use your fabric glue to affix each feature as pictured. Set aside, wokka wokka!
Step 11: For the ghostie, turn your shaggy dust mitt inside out.
Step 12: Draw a line down from the top of the thumb curve to just above the wristband. Bring to your sewing machine and stitch along the line you drew, making sure to backstitch to secure the line.
Step 13: Use your scissors to trim around the stitched line, removing the thumb and the cuff of the mitt.
Step 14: Head back on over to your sewing machine and stitch all the way around the cut edge of the glove with a zig-zag stitch, keeping as close to the cut edge as possible. You will need to remove the arm part of your machine for this. If you choose to do the stitching by hand, use a whip-stitch as recommended for hand sewing Ms. Pac-Man.
Step 15: Trim thread and turn right side out. Center your button and hand-stitch it to the inside of the bottom layer of your glove so that the shaggy mitt front is facing up. Use your scissors to snip an itty-bitty notch into the shaggy front for the button to slip through. Push button through to secure.
Step 16: To create your ghostie’s eyes, cut a rectangle of white felt 1″ x 3″. Cut in half and shape the two pieces into ovals. Use a scrap of aqua felt to cut small squares for the pupils.
Glue your ovals onto the shaggy front of the dust mitt. Glue small pupil squares to the ovals and set aside to dry.
Step 17: Fill your mini-mister with water and tuck it inside the ghostie mitt. Roll Ms. Pac-Man up and tuck her into the mitt on the other side. You now have a nifty screen cleaning kit for your laptop and/or home computer.
To clean your screen, mist a bit of water onto the backside of Ms. Pac-Man (the feature-free side) or the ghostie, and gently wipe across your computer screen in a circular motion to prevent streaks. Keep the water misting to a minimum and ONLY spray onto the Ms. Pac-Man. Don’t press too hard, and your screen will soon be super clean thanks to the hard work of our favorite video game. Ms. Happy Crafting!
About the Author:
Jessica Wilson is most happily known as ‘jek in the box’ and spends most of her time crafting it up and taking pictures. She can often be found standing on benches over on Flickr and creating all sorts of kiddie crafts on her blog scrumdilly-do! She lives a life of scrumdillydilly and loves to share.
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