Spook House and Graveyard!! Yikes!

Hi Everybody,

Finally finished the Spook House!  Here are the photos from start to finish!  It was great fun, but it did take longer than I anticipated.  Of course, I kept adding to it, which didn't help much either!

 I started with a box shaped like a house (duh!). Isabel's very fancy Fairy Birthday Cake came in it.  I had originally thought of making a very large Gingerbread House for Christmas, but I have no more room for Christmas decorations (at least of this size).  So..what's a girl to do?  Just pick another holiday, that's what! Start by painting the box with Gesso (or a paint primer) so the other paint will adhere and cover better.

The fun part was deciding on the colors!  I'd seen several at stores (although MUCH smaller) that were all black, but I wanted a little more color and pizazz!! So I decided on deep purple and orange, along with purple and orange glitter, with accents of black on the window surrounds, door and cupola (all of which are doll house pieces).  The small bag of roughly finished "picks" (top right of photo) s what I used to create a rickety fence (seen in next photo)!  The whole bag was only about $3.00, and I have about 3/4th of the bag left!!  Hmmmm......what can I use with them next I wonder!? 

Ta Da!! Glitter Fest!!  There are 9 windows around all sides of the house (in case I want to display it differently some time). To make it appear as if a light is on inside, I traced yellow card stock to match the window frame.  On top of the card stock, while holding the frame just over it to judge for placement, I glued cut out pictures I'd found in magazines of ghosts, skeletons, etc.  Next I glued the card stock with pictures to the back of the window frame, then glued the whole thing to the side of the house!

 

I had great fun finding pictures that were small enough to work!  And all Fursdons LOVE cats so there are several of them in the Spook House!

Back of the house! Ghosts flying all over the place and one wacky skeleton!!  If you look very carefully, you'll see the right and left windows are slightly different!  They came three in a bag (much cheaper this way), but I didn't realize they were different until after I purchased them.  And I wasn't about to change my mind after I'd already painted and "glitterized" them!

Another Cat!! 

Voila!!  This is sitting in my kitchen Garden Window (which I LOVE and it makes a GREAT display for holiday "scenes" too!).  I put a brown piece of cloth down first to prevent white from showing through, then I placed the house in the center back and surrounded the whole scene with Spanish moss. 

Next came the orange pumpkins Isabel and I painted earlier (see previous blog post).  They look great, don't they?  And the skeletons came from the Dollar Store about 2 years ago.  They were strung together as a garland, but I soon remedied that little problem!  Notice the doorknob is........a hand and forearm (naturally!).  It belongs to the unhappy fellow sitting beside the door on the left.  The other guy, on the right, lost a leg, which just happens to be lying in front of him.  You can tell I enjoyed myself, can't you!?

Another view of the front.

My favorite part - the graveyard!!  I used air dry clay by Crayola and free-formed the "tomb stones" by hand, creating a little "mound" as a base which I pushed the "stones" into after they had dried.  After the bases dried, I painted the entire piece.  Here's what they each read:  "Jack O. Lantern", R.I.P. (naturally), D.M.Bones, Here Lie the Remains of Our Guests From Our  Last Halloween Party!, and Here Lies Bloody Mary (written in blood (Oops! I meant red paint!).

Although she didn't show up in the top photo, little Witchy-Poo is hanging by a supposedly invisible thread, with her broom taped to the wall.  I was going to just let her hang freely, but she kept wanting to turn so that you couldn't even tell she was there!  This is a very special witch.  My mother, Joy, made this and many other Halloween decorations when we were teenagers one year.  I've used them for as long as I can remember.  There is one minor addition though - the eye on the witch.  It's green!  Isabel insisted!

Well, there you have it!  I had intended to make a black gnarly tree from black licorice sticks.  And even though I've already purchased the licorice, I simply don't have the energy to follow through.  Maybe next year.  And the licorice won't be wasted.  Nigel LOVES the black kind!  YUCK!! 

This will be the first time in 12 years that I've had a Halloween party.  My first one was for my girls when they were 12 and 16 years old, while Nigel was stationed in Korea.  This one will be for Isabel (naturally).  I hope to take photos, but I haven't decided if I'll post them! Ha Ha  So until later then.............

Happy Halloween Everybody!!

Jan