WITCH CRAFTS

WITCH CRAFTS

Monday, August 10, 2015

PUMPKIN DIORAMA!

Hi All,
I've been real busy at work these past few months, so not a lot of posts.
BUT -- I went to Michael's Arts & Crafts last week, and they have started putting out their HALLOWEEN stock! I'm so excited!!

(It doesn't take much to make me excited.....)

I decided to start early on my Halloween decorations this year. So, I made a HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN DIORAMA.

Boy, this took me back to my grade school days -- I loved making dioramas for my book reports! (I think I was the only kid who looked forward to doing book reports.) I would save every shoe box in the house so I'd have something to make my dioramas with!

Anyway, I started with a 14 inch foam pumpkin (from Hobby Lobby), and cut a jagged hole in the middle. After looking through my stash of miniature Halloween props, I decided I would make a spooky graveyard scene.

I carved a disc of green Styrofoam, and glued it to the bottom. (This is to lift the scene up to the edge of the hole. I painted the inside of the pumpkin orange with streaks of red, and the jagged edge black. (I had originally painted the inside purple, but I thought it was too dark.)

I have my scary tree and little wooden coffin- aged with acrylics (from Michael's), and my Dollar Store skeleton (just love those skeletons!). Not pictured is a plastic tombstone I ordered from Alpha Stamps last year.

I saw that the skeleton is taller than the coffin, but kept going anyway. I bent him to sit upright in the coffin (using a heat gun and hot glue), so I don't think it's too noticeable. 

(When it comes to Halloween decorations - I don't sweat the small stuff. The kids love it when you make any kind of effort!)


To get the coffin to slant down a little, I glued a wedge of syrofoam to the underside at the top.

 I also glued a chunk of foam under the tombstone to get it higher than the coffin. After everything was glued into place, I glued moss all around the base (to cover foam). 

I hot-glued T-pins to the back of some plastic bats (Dollar Store rings with the ring-part cut off) and just stuck them into the pumpkin. I was going to put them on the inside, but they didn't show that well.

It's done, except I have to figure out how to get a light inside of it. I think I'll use an LED battery votive (which I use in all my pumpkins), and velcro it to the inside at the top -- or maybe at the bottom just inside the jagged edge. Oh well, I'll deal with that when it's time to start decorating my porch and yard. I might also stain the outside of the pumpkin to age it a bit. Maybe I'll get a new crow this year to sit on top of the pumpkin, and pose it so it's looking down at the scene.

This whole project took me about 3-4 hours (spread over 2 days -- had to go to work, ya know). It was a lot of fun to make, and I definitely want to make another one next year...... maybe a haunted house scene?? So many ideas......