Classic Monster Pumpkins

I decided not to do any pumpkin carving for Halloween this year.  Instead I tackled painted pumpkins.  I went with classic monster characters for this year:  Dracula, Frankenstein, a mummy and a vampire bat.  What fun this was!

Certain parts turned out to be a little more challenging than I expected, and I wasn't really crazy about how some of the eyes turned out.  Eyes are hard! 

I used paint, felt, crafting foam, and hot glue.  I don't have much of a step-by-step for these because I just used pictures I found online for inspiration.  The rest I sort of free-styled.

I think I like the carved pumpkins I've done over the last few years better than my painted project for this year.  But out of the four from this year, my favorite is the mini-bat pumpkin.

Just too damn cute.  The hubby thinks it looks like Toothless from the movie How to Train Your Dragon.  I can see it!  So, along with the bat, as I mentioned already, I painted a Dracula...

And a mummy...

And a Frankenstein...

Those eyes!  They make him look a little...special.

My favorite part of Frankenstein is the bolts in the side of his "neck."  In this case we're working under the assumption that pumpkins do in fact have necks.  I can't help making the MREEEEEHH Frankenstein moan in my head whenever I look at him.

So, here are all of my monster pumpkins out on our table in the front.

These were fun to do, but like I said earlier, I think I'll go back to carving next year.  They're cute, but I think last year's zombies and the year before's vampires came out better.  19 more days till Halloween!

Ta-ta for now.

Autumn Pumpkin Centerpiece

Halloween & Christmas book crafts, 2011-ish

If you know me in the real world or read my blog often enough, you know I love books.  I also love to create crafts from books, and I was a total sucker when I stumbled upon this pumpkin book pages craft.  Had. To. Do. It.

This wasn't my first foray into book pages crafts. - I did a fun Christmas tree book craft and a Halloween "ghosts popping out of a book" paper craft a few years ago.  I displayed both of them on the front desk of the library I worked in at the time.  They were fun, so I knew I'd be into the pumpkin one when I saw it.

The pumpkin book page craft wasn't too far off from the Christmas tree project. - Same basic concept.  I found somewhat mediocre step-by-step instructions over at Creations by Kara.  You can get the directions here. There are other sites with better directions, but the project isn't too terribly difficult once you get going.

I won't go into the play by play of the process since there's a link to instructions above, but the basic premise is to cut out a pumpkin template, which you then use to cut the book pages into shape. 

5-7 pages at a time is a good estimate for how many pages you can cut at once.  Any more than that and the cut outs get a little distorted, or the pages are too thick to get a scissor through. 

I only made one pumpkin so far, but I think he may need a smaller friend.  I used green ribbon I already had in my crafting stash, and the stem is a stick from the yard that I cut down to size.  Just like the how-to directions, I spray painted a light coat of orange around the outside to give it a more pumpkin-y feel. 

One of the more annoying parts about the way it turns out is that it takes a little bit of coaxing to make the pages stay where you want them to.  They didn't really fan out the way I wanted them to, but I managed to mess with it long enough to get it to look okay.  Maybe fewer pages would work better.  Overall, turned out cute!  Kind of a fun, literary autumn centerpiece for the table.

Ta-ta for now.

Zombie Pumpkins

Halloween crafts this year are courtesy of the Queen, yet again.  That would be Martha.  Stewart, for those who don't immediately think of her when the words "craft" and "Martha" are used in the same sentence.  And who are those people, anyway?  Downright Un-American.  Just kidding.  I've had a rum cocktail & I'm feisty at the moment.

So, I'm fully in love with how my zombie pumpkins turned out.  Granted, they're not exactly menacing.  They're more whimsical and kind of cute. - Which is why I was compelled to add blood dripping from their maws.  I came up with a full back story for them, too.  See, they look all innocent and sweet with their happy, but also somewhat maniacal faces.  That's to lure you closer.  And that's when they strike and gnaw your face off.  Don't be fooled by the smile.  Those blood shot zombie eyes are of the UNDEAD.  Tread carefully.

So, this pumpkin craft was pretty straight forward and not hard to pull off.  The nice part about this project was that there wasn't any major carving, thereby avoiding the inevitable messy pumpkin guts that go hand in hand with jack-o-lantern type crafts. Then again, no toasted pumpkin seeds to snack on, either.  Booo.

My inspiration and step-by-step instructions can be found here, but I'll give you a run-down of what I did, too.  I used ping pong balls for the eyes, and you could also buy those chocolate eyeballs they sell this time of year. - But, I think it's more fun to DIY the eyes.

Plus, the chocolate eyes that were on sale at the Exchange were smaller than what I wanted.  I was going for big, bug-eyed pumpkins.  My supply list ended up being plain white ping pong balls, red and yellow craft paint, red and black sharpie markers, a red plastic bead to create the über red pupils, and a hot glue gun.

Here's the gist:  use a screw and the end of a pair of scissors to poke and widen a hole in the ping pong ball in order to recess the red bead a little bit, paint a yellow circle around the hole, and go to town with the black and red sharpies and red craft paint to make the eyes as zombie-like as you want them.  Once the ping pong balls are all painted up and dry, use a hot glue gun to attach the red bead inside the hole.  Voilà!  Zombie eyes.

I was digging making
the blood shot eyes.
So much fun to create!

As for cutting out the eyes on the pumpkin, I just estimated the size of the circle I would need and cut out the eye holes accordingly.  Once all the the paint and glue dried, I used the hot glue gun to secure the ping pong ball eyes into the eye socket holes I cut into the pumpkin. 

The mouth template on Martha's site is no longer active, so you kind of have to freestyle it.  Whatever your imagination envisions.  I penciled out a few mouth designs on a piece of paper that were similar to the picture of the sample pumpkins on her page. - That's kind of the look I was going for.

As the instructions say, I taped the template for the mouth onto the pumpkin, and used the tip of a screw to poke through all along the outline to transfer the design.  Then I carefully cut out the mouth and called it done.

It was a fun little Halloween craft!  Here are my finished Zombie Pumpkins, front and center on my little table in front of the house:

I love how the wider yellow eyes and tiny, jagged mouth make the one on the right look completely unstable. He'll eat you. - RAAAH! I almost want to go to town on the big one's mouth.  He needs to be more menacing.  Maybe I'll do a little reconstructive surgery on him.

If you're looking for a fun take on pumpkin decorating, this is a good one to give a shot!  You might also like the vampire pumpkins I did last Halloween.  Check them out here.  They're even easier than these zombie pumpkins. - No paint involved.  Here's to another season of all things harvesty.  And cheers to the Queen of all crafts.  And insider trading.  Just kidding - I love Martha!

Ta-ta for now.

BRAINS.

It's That Time Again...

Time for Halloween crafts!  I'm in love with this adorable pumpkin craft I did the other day - it's so damn cute.  I got it from the undisputed queen.  That would be Martha.  I'll give you a little rundown of what I did, and you can also get step-by-step directions here.  I wanted to try it last Halloween, but I never got around to it, so I made sure to get the supplies I needed this year so I could make it happen.

ROWR!!

Amazon Prime to the rescue again.  Kodiak is pretty limited as far as shopping goes, so not surprisingly, there's no craft store here.  I was so sad when I learned that bit of knowledge.  I used to love strolling around Ben Franklin, Michael's, or Joanne's for inspiration.  I guess I'll have to "stroll" around the internet for inspiration now.  Thankfully, so far I've been able to get everything I've wanted for craft projects through Amazon, including the vampire teeth I used for the pumpkins. 

It's not a difficult project, and the end result is Halloween-tastic.  First, you'll want to draw an outline on the pumpkin of what size mouth you want to cut, using the vampire teeth to sort of estimate the size you'd like.  The next obvious step is to cut out the mouth.  It's probably a lot easier to use one of those little saws that come in pumpkin carving kits, but I lost mine somewhere between here and there.  That's our go to answer whenever something goes missing.  It's somewhere between here and there. 

So, I used a paring knife to cut the mouth by sort of rocking it back and forth once I pierced through the outer part of the skin.  Kind of tedious, but it gets the job done if you're saw-less.  Once you've cut the mouth out, you'll need to scrape all the lovely pumpkin seeds and guts out.  I was pretty thorough with scraping out all the gunk because the pumpkins will be outside on the table in front of the house and I don't want to attract any Magpies.

A nice little bonus to this project is that you can rinse and toast the pumpkin seeds you scoop out for a delicious, savory snack.  An easy recipe for that is here.  I like to (of course) sprinkle a little parmigiano-reggiano on them along with the olive oil, salt and pepper.  It's a yummy high fiber & high protein snack to munch on while you craft it up!

Once the inside is all scraped out, position the teeth into the mouth.  For the eyes, I sacrificed one of my red plastic bead necklaces.  Between living in the Tampa area and celebrating Gasparilla and living in Key West and celebrating Fantasy Fest, we have our fair share of plastic beads.  I carved out a tiny hole for each of the eyes so they would be a little recessed, and used hot glue to secure the eyes in place.  Voilà!  All done.

I must confess - It's late and I'm a few glasses of wine in.
And yes, I'm cracking up laughing in this picture.
Apparently, the wine told me it's wildly hilarious
to take selfies with vampire teeth.  ;)

I love the way they turned out!  I'm working on another Halloween project that I wanted to include in this blog post along with the vampire pumpkins, but I unexpectedly ran out of one of the essential materials in the middle of working on it.

Since I had to re-order more on Amazon, I'll have to wait until it comes in the mail to finish it.  I also have plans for the bigger pumpkin, but I wasn't able to get it done before this post. So, be prepared for another Halloween crafting post in the next few weeks.  Let's hear it for Martha.  Now, go get some pumpkins!

Ta-ta for now.