DIY: halloween diorama

  Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.  I’m much more of a Christmas type of gal.  Sure, it was fun as a kid when you got to stay out past dark and get a sugar buzz from all the candy.  But as I got older, it lost its appeal.  Part of that happened in college when I got into a feminist snit about costume options for women.  Sexy nurse, sexy witch, sexy zombie…The lack of easily recognizable woman characters that don’t involve cleavage and  fishnet stockings still irritates me.  And on the east coast of the U.S. at the end of October, you could get a serious case of frostbite walking around like that.

  But my husband loves Halloween, and now so does my daughter.  So the house is full of pumpkins and plastic skeletons.  And their enthusiasm has started to rub off.  And plastic craft pumpkins started calling to me.  Just like real pumpkins, without the goop and the rot.  And perfect for making a spooky diorama, which doesn’t go over well at Christmastime.

supplies:

• large craft pumpkin
• small crow
• round foam disk
• stick
• paint in blue, white and silver
• sculpey clay
• sphagnum moss
• paintbrush
• toothpicks
• 1 strand electric Christmas lights (not pictured)
• painter’s or masking tape(not pictured)

 

I made a quick template in photoshop of an oval the size I wanted my cutout to be.  Print it, cut it out, tape it to your pumpkin and trace your template.

Use an exacto knife to out the oval from your craft pumpkin.  This feels a lot like carving a real pumpkin; it’s tough to get through so best to go slow.

Paint the inside of you pumpkin and let dry.  I gave mine 2 coats to be even.  Paint some stars on top.  I’m calling mine folksy, which is my nice way of saying sloppy.  It’s tricky to paint the inside of the pumpkin.

While your paint is drying, make some tombstones.  Roll out your sculpey with a rolling pin and cut tomb shapes.  Again, I made a little template to follow.  Break toothpicks in half and insert them in the bottoms of your tombstones.  Bake in the oven on a foil covered baking sheet at 275° until hard, about 15-30 minutes depending on thickness of clay.  Let cool.  Mix your silver paint with a little water and paint tombstones to give them a weathered look.

Once all your paint is dry, trim your stick to fit inside your pumpkin and attach your crow.  I used the wire already attached to the feet.  Put your foam disk into the pumpkin, push the crow and stick into the foam.  Push the toothpicks in your tombstones into the foam.  Add your moss.

Originally, I bought electric tea lights to light the inside of my pumpkin.  But they didn’t give off enough light.  So since there are only 62 more shopping days til Christmas, I knew Walmart would have Christmas lights for sale.  Yup, they did.

I bought a string of battery operated lights and taped them on the inside of the pumpkin around the opening.  I put the extra length of lights in the back to give some creepy back light.