Stay Home Saturday: Monbebe Liz Action Figure

Posted by Stephanie on May 3, 2020

General

In this edition of Stay At Home Saturday (yes, it’s Sunday, shut up, I’ve been dealing with feelings) we’re going check in with our craft corner. This February I was hit with the age-old question, what would LizC want for her birthday? The obvious answer? A MONBEBE LIZ action figure. Dur.

And if you follow these simple steps you could make one of your very own!

Ingredients

Wooden Dowel, small enough to look like a light stick handle in Monbebe Liz’s hand
Black marker
Hot glue/hot glue gun
Basic Barbie – after a lot of time in the store, I went with Sweet Orchard Farm Barbie because of her outfit and already colored hair. While I was hoping for a completely colored haired doll, the ones that would fit the bill were those weird faux dolls and they didn’t come with a box. Monbebe Liz demanded a coordinated box.
Scissors
Gems with a sticky back.
DIY Crystals – this was found in the craft aisle of Walmart. Without much work it almost perfectly replicates the Monsta X lightstick.
Monsta X stickers – luckily something I happened to have laying around…any good Monbebe should.
More hot glue
Pipecleaner
Tiny embroidery flowers also found in the Walmart craft section
Printer
Craft paper
Elastic
A will to succeed.

Directions

First step! Remove Barbie as carefully from her packaging as possible! You’re going to want to use all the bits later.
Take those scissors and whack at barbies hair until it’s an appropriate MonBebe Liz length. (This is Liz specific, yours might differ.) Learn from the follies of your youth and don’t cut too much otherwise that will stand up on end and you’ll end up with Heat Meiser Liz. This is not your goal!
Attempt to curl your Monbebe Liz’s hair to make it more like actual Liz’s hair. Realize your folly and give up pretty quickly.
Cut the dowel to a lightstick sized bit. Don’t be too concerned when you can’t get a clean cut, realize this is NOT going to be perfect and anything janky you can cover up with a blob of hot glue.
Even though you’ve bought black paint, on first try you’re going to realize that a good black sharpie is going to be the easiest way to go and completely turn that lightstick handle black.
Go wash your hands.
Admire your work and giggle a little.
Remove jacket from Monbebe Liz and apply gems into the formation of the Monsta X logo.
Put jacket back on. Giggle some more. Perhaps send some pics to friends.
Using hot glue, attach the crystal to the lightstick handle. The trick is to use enough to make sure the crystal sticks but not enough to be like….that’s a big glob of hot glue.
Realize if you put Monbebe Liz in the box, no one is ever going to see the coolness that is the back of the jacket. Pout and then put it aside. YOU’LL know. So will your helper. (Helper not strictly necessary.)
Using a sticker, jazz up that tank top! This is where it’s handy to have a rather flat-chested Barbie. (Sorry Barbie.) Mush it down really hard to make sure the sticker adhesive sticks to the fabric material. (If you don’t have Monsta X stickers, just print out a picture and cut around. If you do this, I would not recommend using a moist glue. Go glue gun or glue stick so the glue doesn’t run or smear your pic.)
Stress maybe you should hot glue that.
Let it go.
Time to address the headband! As any good Kpop concert-goer knows, no concert is complete without at least a quarter of the attendants being decked out in floral or giant head headbands. Here we’re going to do both. Wrap a pipe cleaner tightly around Monbebe Liz’s head leaving extra material to twist at the top and spread out the end as prongs. Think football goalpost.
Using the hot glue gun, carefully glue the tiny flowers into a wreath over the top of Monbebe Liz’s head.
At the end of the prongs, glue tiny heads of band members. I’m not certain how this became a thing, but it is, so we’re going with it. I used the stickers I had, but again, printed out pics work just as fine.
Giggle some more, send out pre-congratulatory pics to your friends.
Feel free to bedazzled your Monbebe Liz as needed. This is a Kpop fan action figure! You really can’t go too far!
Fan sign. Cut out a fan sign sized piece of craft paper (or just use old card stock, you’re essentially going to cover it up, you just want a firm base to work with!) Put message to your group! I used the logo as I had one, but you could be as creative as you want! I also used a good portion of the gems as it came in a 500 pack and I used like 12 for the jacket. Waste not, want not! Hot glue a paper strap on the back that will fit Monbebe Liz’s hand.
Attempt to hot glue light stick to the other hand. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did as mine popped off when I was trying to mount her to the box so I added it in like an accessory on the side.
You’re Monbebe Liz is set! Now to set on the packaging. Choose a wallpaper to compliment your own Monbebe Liz. Print out and glue to the inside of the original packaging. I used hot glue and I think this was an error as it did not want to stick. I’m thinking a glue stick would work better for you.
Find the holes where the original Barbie was attached to the package and poke holes through the wallpaper to match. Place doll on backing and use a length of elastic to tie her in place. (Ooh that sounds dirty.)
Though this will horrify any graphic designers out there, I used Powerpoint to make more of the packaging to make the box look as realistic as possible. Print and glue in place.
Not pictured, I also did the same to the back of the original box.
Using more glue, carefully glue the original packaging in place.
Celebrate and gift to your real-life fangirl friend!