Starting Halloween

I’m behind this year. Normally I start Halloween crafting in August, but it’s been that kind of year. Anyway, Tuesday I got started on the monster plants. These guys are supposed to be a super cheap thing you make with dollar store pumpkins, green paint that I guess you already own, real leaves, tree branches, flower pots, and expanding foam. If you’ve ever made a dollar tree craft you know the first rule is that your dollar tree does NOT have the item, never has, and never will. Since they had to be hollow, carveable pumpkins, I ended up having to buy them from Michael’s for 20$ a piece. Yeah, so much for cheap. But, I have the pumpkins, so time to get on it.

See my cool little pencil lines? Don’t they look nice? The directions suggest using a pumpkin carving kit to cut that pit, but mine is buried in a mess we didn’t get to work on this summer like planned, so instead I used a steak knife. It was actually pretty comparable.

Roar. Looking good except now I have to duplicate that on the other side…so how am I supposed to manage that when I am incapable of symmetry? Yeah, I had to make a pattern. I’m not going to lie, it took longer to figure out how to make the pattern that would curve around the curved pumpkin, and make it match what I already had, than it did to cut the thing. But, after a lot of trial and error I cam up with this hinged design.

Best part is it could flip both ways (since it has to be backwards for the other side of the pumpkin. Anyway, so taped it on, traced it, then cut it with my handy steak knife.

Nom! Nom! Then I did the whole thing over again for the second one.

And the final was to do a spray paint test and make sure the paint wouldn’t eat the foam. I used the scrap piece and it did okay.

So I just need to get paint, leaves, and expanding foam. Since I’m sticking them in the bushes I’m going to use a couple of last years black buckets instead of a flower pot. I’m also thi king about making some googly eyes to stick randomly in the bushes, too. I have the plastic “eggs” from the Fashion surprises (like the mini brands but they are tiny purses) so I’m thinking of using them. We will see.

In other news, the electric company is still at work in the yard.

And they have done something weird. All along where the lines go is a raised incline now that’s cracked.

The driveway is the worst

We talked to them and they are going to squish it back down flat. It is apparently a thing that happens sometimes – they had a term for it – so hopefully it will be taken care of.

As for yesterday we did our weekly Council Bluffs trip and ate at Hu Hot.

And from there things went down hill, but that’s another story.

Anyway, for now I leave you on a more interesting note. Pumpkin Spice Cream Pie. Is it just me or isn’t that what Pumpkin Pie is, already???? Is dumping a can of spiced pumpkin pie filling into a bowl and adding an egg before dumping it into the crust too complicated? (Or yu can skip the egg and get a nice custard. I’ve done that before because I was out of eggs).

And now I leave you because I have work to do before the family gets here.

Have a Hu Hot kinda day!

Jo 🙂