How to Decorate for Halloween: Chatter Teeth!

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a weekend elbows deep in clay and Halloween crafterin' and, I'm not even gonna lie, I.Was.In.Heaven. Seriously. In fact, just tonight, I asked el hubs-tastic if there he thought there was a book publisher out there who might be interested in a new edition of Encyclopedia Britannica of Halloween Crafter'ness cuz I just might be the gal for the gig. Case in point: these Halloween Chatter Teeth!

I created these bad boys after settling on the theme for my Candy Corn Tree: Monster Mash (BTW, have you entered to win a $150 shopping spree yet? If not, what in the world is wrong with you, get yourself here, right meow!) Don't ask me what this has to do with traditional monsters...other than the iconic Rocky Horror Picture Show image. I mean, that qualifies as a classic, right?

In all honesty, the idea came to me from my sketchbook. A year ago, I filled my sketchbook with Halloween-themed ideas and these chatter teeth were one of them. After a pinch of troubleshooting, I discovered that these silly teeth were super easy to make. So much so, I created a video just for you! Here you go:

To create these bad boys, rustle up the following:

* Aluminum Foil I like the stuff in the precut sheets cuz I'm too lazy to cut. Hit up the Dollar Tree for the Aluminum Foil for Lazy People. Yes, that's the actual name. 

* Rigid Wrap Plaster Strips I like the stuff from Activa Products which you can find here. By the way, full disclosure and such, I often work with Activa Products. But I do truly love their products. Case in point...

* Celluclay I don't care what you say, Celluclay is my JAM, boy! I love the stuff, it makes my world go 'round. 

Now, if you've never worked with plaster strips, lemme just say, it is a gift sent from heaven above. It dries so quickly! It has the strength of ten horses! It's quite possibly the best thing ever!

But I say "quite possibly the best thing ever" with a grain of salt. Because, in all honesty, Celluclay is the best. I'm telling you, get you some, I'll make you a believer. I will say that the stuff does take FOREVER to dry so, for the love, put your creations in front of a fan and rotate, rotate, rotate. As mold loves to grow if you do not. At least in the humid mold-growin' breeding grounds of middle Tennessee.

AND once dry, paint with acrylic. 

And display where big mouths and loud mouths hang.

Out of laziness, I did not cover the chatter teeth with a clear varnish. The acrylic had enough shine to give these guys the sheen they needed. 

Once complete, these chatter boxes can be displayed just about anywhere! In the living room...

In your Candy Corn Halloween Tree...

Next to a decapitated head of Dracula...I mean, really, the choice is yours. 

Wherever you decide to do, just don't for get to enter to win THIS GIVEAWAY, for the love of all things chatter teeth-y and holy. Okay?! 

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DIY: Eyeball Ornaments

They say the eyes have it, y'all. Well, I'm excited to say that not only do they have it but they have bows too. Yay! Balls and bows, my favorite! Wait, uhhhhh. Scratch that. Eyeball ornaments with bows are my favorite. That sounds MUCH better.

I created these Eyeball Ornaments for my Halloween tree (yes, it's a thing) that will be revealed right here on October 9th so mark your calendar in Candy Corn, witches, cuz it's a Candy Corn Tree! I was tasked by Treetopia to not only decorate said tree but come up with a theme. I've been sharing sneak peeks here but you'll have to wait until October 9th for the full reveal. Until then, I'll be sharing the DIY's I created for the tree.  Today, that means there here ornaments. Here's my wee how-to video:

Here's a wee list of the supplies I used:

* Foil. I hit up the Dollar Tree for this one. Did you know they sell a box of 30 sheets of foil for...you guested it...a dollar?! That place is my sanctuary. Don't judge.

* Rigid Wrap. Which is plaster wrap. You can find plaster wrap at craft stores but I really like Activa's Rigid Wrap. The stuff just seems a little thicker and more sturdy. You can find it here.

* Acrylic Paint. I'm a fan of the cheapo craft store stuff. Cuz I'm cheap and crafty. At least that's what the boys say.  

Before these cuties hit my tree, I displayed them for all to see. If you are curious where I scored my Halloween decor, I'll gladly spill the beans: Nancy Drew book collection was from a gullible neighbor kid I knew when growing up; EEK signs scored at 70% off at after-Halloween sales last fall; paintings by yours truly; beakers from the craft store and the rest was thrifted. 

 Oh! I forgot to mention, after the eyeballs were created, I thought they needed a little touch of cute and fun so I added the bows. I used ribbon found at the craft store. After shaping them in to bows, I simply hot glued them to the top.

 By the way, what is it with me and eyeballs? I mean, I have an eyeball dress and eyeball jewelry. Weird, much?

 About that Haunted Mansion painting...I've never blogged about it because I never finished the thing. And I don't know if I will. The spider webs are strategically placed to hide my unfinished'ish'ness. 

 I REALLLLLLY cannot wait to share my Halloween tree with y'all. Any guesses on the theme I went with? The big reveal will be next Monday, October 9th!

  On a different note, is it weird that I'm itching to paint the covers of the Nancy Drew books and hang them in my house? I want a whole wall. I am living for the paintings on the cover. I might have to do some painting over fall break...which is next week...not that I'm counting the MINUTES. 

 Oh! And not only have I been decorating my home but my art room as well. I'm excited to share what's new in that hot mess express, choo-choo!

 Until then, Jeepers, Creepers! Where'd you get them Peepers?! 

 

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DIY: The Bride Gets Busted! Painting

Lately, I've had the itch to paint pieces to decorate the house. I'm kinda tired of looking at the same ole stuff that's been up for entirely too long. So with the change of the seasons, I thought it'd be fun to create a coupla Halloween-y works o' art. And, ya know, if I'm gonna paint a painting, I gotta redecorate the whole room to work around it, right?!

Right. 

I got the idea to paint mugshots of The Bride way back in August when I came across this amazing post of vintage lady mugshots. Tell me these aren't the most bad a$$ ladies you've ever seen. I've dreamt up stories for each and every one of them! I really wanted to paint my own set of mugshots after seeing these and decided that ones of The Bride would be perfect for Halloween. So, I dug out a canvas from The Hoarder Room (yes, this magical place of never ending chaos and thrifted goodness exists) that I'd painted black and texture-y years ago.

From there, I added two scratchily painted square shapes and started sketching in The Bride.

 I blocked these in all fast and furious like before heading off to bed. I have this habit of getting hung up on small details. So if I can block in an entire painting in one stage of work, it really helps loosen me up, let go and enjoy the process a whole lot more.

Can we just talk about how gorgeous Elsa Lanchester is for a moment? Holy Macaroni, y'all. Those eyes! That pout! That lil dent-in-thingie on her chin. Gorg.

I tried my very best to do her justice. I've never painted monochromatic portraits before so that was fun and interesting. I liked it because I didn't have to mess with skin tones and such. However, the computer image was tricky since it didn't have a huge variety of values to work from. So whenever I would start to get frustrated with her face, I'd work on her hair. Which was super fun!

Ah, lookie! It's a What the Art Teacher Wore on the Weekend: pj's. It's a rare occasion when I'm not in pj's on the weekend. Don't judge. 

There's some lil thingies that still bug me but, eh, she's done. And I'm pretty pleased.

And then there came the profile. UGH, y'all. That profile drove me bananaz!

Even at this stage, it still felt cartoon-y somehow. I stayed on the struggle bus for a while with this one. But I kinda blame the image I was working from.

It truly didn't offer me much value on the surface of her face because of the way the photo was lit. Everytime I painted her face, she just looked so flat. But, look at the photo, it looks flat!

I ultimately took a mirror and used myself as a model to at least capture some cheekbone-age. I just realized I never finished the neck! Oh my gosh, what's that black teardrop shape soul patch thingie hanging from her chin?! Too late now. Once it's on the wall, I won't take it down to fix nothing. I've got another painting on the easel now!

I wanted her mugshot clip board thing to have those slide-in letters that often look crooked and wonky. I thought that might add a bit of silliness to the piece.

And finished! If you like this lil piece, I added it to my Society6 shop! Then you too can rearrange your entire dining room to feature one painting, ha!

Lil known secret: the only reason I actually did clean and redecorate my dining room is because I hosted a lil Crafter-ween party on Friday! More details on that and what we made in an upcoming post. It's sad...but the only reason I'll clean is for company. I think that's why the hubs never argues when I say I'm hosting a Craft Night.

Oh, look, a sneak-peak of our craft night! We worked with Sculpey, one of my fave things ever. But, alas, I'm getting ahead of myself. More to come!

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Weekend Adventure: Wicked in Williamsburg

This webby bridge is one of the only means to enter or exit the spookiness of Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Howl O Scream. A family that was desperately trying to leave the park (their wailing children just couldn't take it anymore) was getting no where fast when their little girl refused to exit the park via the "scary" bridge. Knowing the will power of a wee one, that fam might still be there.

 A couple weekends ago, hubs and I took a weekend trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, aka Colonial Williamsburg. And while I'm mildly interested in history, we didn't go there to see how butter was churned or how America came to be. 

Oh no, we went for something much better than that:

Haunted Houses. 

Particularly the ones found at the Busch Garden's Howl O Scream event.

Now, I'm sure you've heard of Busch Gardens...but did you know that there are two? The one in Tampa is probably more famous because of it's proximity to Disney. It has an African theme. The one in Williamsburg has a European theme. This Big Ben-esque clock tower can be found at the front of that park. I love the spooky bird decorations. Hitchcock woulda been proud.

 We decided to hit the park first thing on a Saturday morning. They have a brand new roller coaster, the Verbolten, that we wanted to check out (and by "we",  I mean hubs and a reluctant me). I actually had a pretty embarrassing scream-fest-freak-out on the ride when it zipped into a dark tunnel. I just knew it was going to blast off from zero to eighty miles per hour (it didn't), so I flipped the Crazy Switch, complete with high-pitched wailing and arm/leg flailing. Hubs kept yelling, "What? Am I missing something?" The dad and his kid in the seats in front of us turned around and laughed at me. 

So embarrassing.

After that experience, we hit the coaster Griffon, which is easily one of the most frightening (at 205', it's one of the tallest coasters in the world) and best roller coasters I've ever been on. For a look-see, check out this youtube video (particularly minute 1:15) to get the idea.

 I love that every corner of the park was decorated for the occasion. Inside the building on the left was a fantastic dinner show that was like a spooky cabaret set in the 1920's. On the right is the French area of  Busch Gardens that looked as though it was been taken over by a rat-infested plague.

I debuted my Horror Flick dress at Busch Gardens. I was thrilled when folks complimented my dress. It was such fun to wear.

 After a short trip back to the hotel for some rest (we knew we would need our energy for the half dozen haunted houses and shows that evening), we returned to find a pretty spooktacular event. It was great fun and the perfect start to our tour of Halloween Haunts.

Hubs and I waiting for a show to begin.

 I just hollered up the stairs to hubs, "how long have we been going to these Halloween things, anyway?"

"Hmm. Not sure. A long time. Maybe 10 or more years?"

You'd think after that amount of time, being chased by a dude in a leatherface mask wielding a chainsaw would get a little, I don't know, redundant. And, to be honest, the chainsaw dudes don't actually freak me out anymore (but just to be kind, I do give 'em a good scream. It's the right thing to do). But there's always something that does. Freak me out, that is. That's what keeps us coming back for more.

We did do our time in Colonial Will'burg the following day. The weather was perfect and the sights were so sweet...the complete opposite of the previous evenings horrors.

Like this cute shoeless milliner crafting a hat. In a haunted house, he would have been creating the hats out of faux flesh and wielding a chainsaw. Just sayin'.

Or these lovely Colonial style hats...that would have been worn by zombie Colonial girls slashing the air with axes and carrying headless dolls. For example.

Precious scene of a carriage ride from long ago, you think? In a haunted house, the carriage driver would be headless, the horse would be a skeleton and the passengers would be fluffy McDonald's-eating tourists. Hey...wait a minute...

Delightful debutantes out for a Sunday stroll? That's what you think. Just wait until they turn their green witchy faces around and...

 Oh, my bad. Musta been thinking of those other demonic debutantes. Sorry, ladies. How 'bout a picture?

We came upon this fun farmer's market, complete with an impromptu hoedown.

...Little did we know, they were playing "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", waking up this beauty of a beast. Dude, maybe we should play "Devil Went Down to the Dentist." Just sayin'.

 Wait a minute...are you STILL reading this blog post? Now that is frightening. 

Thanks for dropping by. I hope this has inspired you to check out your local Halloween haunts or even the bigger ones at places like Busch Gardens or Universal. I promise, you won't regret it!

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