khamillion

October is here and Halloween seems to be many people’s favorite time to craft fun, silly, and sometimes scary stuff. Growing up I personally dreaded Halloween because I was a scaredy cat and I hated all the skeletons, vampires, and scary creatures. Thank goodness “Casper the Friendly Ghost” tv cartoon came around to calm me down a bit. (heehee).

Every year I try to make some sort of “friendly fiend”. Today I’m going to share last years project with you. It is relatively easy but will take some time. The most difficult part is that you will need to sculpt a little (nose, eyes, mouth, shoes) with air dry clay…but the rest is basic. Don’t be scared..it sounds more complicated than it really is.

Here We Go!

Supplies:

Note: I bought most of these supplies at Michaels. 

1. 9″ craft pumpkin (I used a black one but it doesn’t matter what color because you are going to paint it).
2. Creatology™ air dry clay.
3. Black foam or stiff felt sheet (large size-this is for the hat).
4. Black Marabou feather boa.
5. Paint: dark green, pale green, red, orange, black.
6. Small paintbrush, Medium paintbrush, foam brush.
7. Crackle medium or Elmer’s™ Glue.
8. 1″ painters tape.
9. 2 wooden dowels.
10. 4 brass eyes (hardware).
11. 2 marbles (cat eyes).
12. Black pipe cleaners.
13. Hot Glue Gun.
14. Wire Pliers.

Instructions:

Note: Prepare an area with newspaper and be near a socket for your hot glue gun.

1. Paint the pumpkin dark green and let dry.
2. While the pumpkin is drying begin sculpting your eye sockets, nose, warts, mouth, and shoes. I have taken close up pictures for you to use as a guide (see bottom of post). Sculpting is the tricky part but just take your time until you are satisfied. Special Notes: The eye sockets must fit around the eye balls (marbles). The shoes need to fit onto the end of the sticks. The facial features must contour the roundness of the pumpkin because they will be glued onto the surface of the pumpkin.
3. Allow the sculpted items to dry only after you have glued them onto the pumpkin using your hot glue gun.
4. After the clay has dried paint the eyes and nose dark green too. Paint the lips dark red and the teeth white. Paint the shoes black.
5. As the above items are drying get your wooden dowels out and half each of them so that you have 4 pieces. Connect them with tiny brass eyes one of which you will need to “open” with wire pliers and latch into the other mate, then close again. [one end of the eye screws into the wood end]
6. Take your 1″ painters tape and wrap pieces around wooden dowels to form the orange and black striped stockings.
7. Paint exposed 1″ areas with orange paint. After this dries, remove tape and paint remaining exposed areas with black paint.
8. Now your pumpkin should be dry and you can paint on the crackle medium with your foam brush. If you use glue to make the crackle be sure you dilute it 2 parts glue to 1 part water. Don’t forget to paint the medium on your facial features too (not lips).
9. Before the crackle medium dries paint on the pale green color.
10.  To speed up the drying process you can hold a hair dryer about 10″ from surface. You should begin to see cracks exposing the darker green color underneath.
11. Add dark green shading around eyes and nose and mouth. Add shading to mouth (I used black paint). Put her some eye liner on if you wish (I even added some false eyelashes) and paint her warts black.
12. Now the hat: Fold the foam into a pointed cylinder and trim excess. Hot glue the edges together. Place the feather trim around large end and at pointed end. Then, hot glue the hat onto your pretty witch.
13. Wrap the knees and area above shoes with the black pipe cleaners and twist ends to secure.
14. Hot glue the legs to the bottom of the “head” and glue remaining feather boa around bottom of “head”.

YOU DID IT! See? Not so hard but maybe a little scary…

PS: Please share your witch and submit a picture in the comments. I would love to see yours! :0)