Pin It Do It - HALLOWEEN!

by Bex

If you were following me on Pinterest in the months leading up to Halloween and #ODP2, you will have seen a rather obsessive pinning spree with all things Halloween related.  I actually ended up attempting quite a few of the ideas (there were SO many!) and thought I'd share some of them here as a huge Halloween #PinItDoIt!  Some worked, some didn't.

http://pinterest.com/pin/250794272972312677/

I was really pleased with my toilet rolls with eyes - I cut out 10 (and got a numb thumb from the scissors - seriously, it lasted for 2 days, I was worried!) and bought plenty of glow sticks online.  I hastily put a few in the bushes before the chocolate class with Vikki's help (hoping to surprise everyone with the glowing eyes when we returned in the dark) but when we got back they were completely unnoticeable due to all the light coming out of the main door.  :(  Even the photo I attempted didn't show them up well, at all.  Instead, here's one of my test glow stick taken in the kitchen...

I actually had a problem with the delivery of my glow sticks which didn't initially turn up and when it took me a few days to get in touch with the company (emails went missing) they sent me an upgraded parcel as an apology.  Unfortunately, this nice gesture backfired as they sent me bigger sticks instead of the 4" ones I ordered.  6" sticks would have stuck out the sides of my toilet rolls so I had to ask them to send the size I ordered which they did and said to keep the 6" ones as well!  Cue brainstorming for ideas on what to do with the bigger ones!  I decided to use some large rubber gloves which I blew up, placed a glow stick in each and floated them in the bath to create a spooky atmosphere in the bathroom too!

Another idea which quite literally fell apart was this one of spiders swarming across a door...

http://pinterest.com/pin/250794272972317033/

As my doors are wooden, I thought they'd show up better on one of our kitchen cupboard doors which are cream.  I used double sided tape to stick them on as blu-tak would have been visible and I didn't want to use glue!  It seemed to work perfectly so I spent about half an hour sticking them on as if they were hatching from the corner.  It looked great...

Until...

They started falling off one by one, I stuck them back up a few times but by the next morning this is what was left.

A few of the ideas which worked really well were the fang food labels

http://pinterest.com/pin/515591857309226551/

I made mine glittery and was really pleased with the result...

Another idea which worked well was the Vampire Blood Syringe shots.

http://pinterest.com/pin/250794272972472881/

I placed them in a beaker, the drink was made out of cherry cider, kirsch and peach schnapps.  They went down pretty well...

One of my absolute favourite ideas though, and the one I think worked best, was the glitter skull!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272972619421/

I planned to buy one I'd seen in a pet shop but when I went to get it, they were on offer 3 for 2 so I thought I may as well make 3!  I'm so glad I did as I love them and wish I could display them all year round - a much cheaper version of the diamante skulls inspired by Damien Hirst you can buy for up to £200 (see my home pinterest board for a few examples)!  (Sadly Nik doesn't agree but they don't really go with our current decor anyway.)

They're really simple to do - just get some newspaper or a large carrier bag (to protect your surface from the glue) and use a spray adhesive all over (or you can do half at a time but I found it was easy enough to pick up by the hole in the back of the head to turn and hold) before holding over a folded piece of card (to enable easy pouring of the excess glitter back into it's container) and sprinkling with glitter.  Repeat with another layer of adhesive and glitter if required, ensuring you get all 'bald' spots and leave to dry.  I then sprayed them with hairspray to try to stop any glitter falling off.

Before & After

I only had time to make 2 and I want to make the 3rd one green anyway and didn't have enough green glitter so that's been put away for next year!

My ice hand in the punch was easy and very effective...

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272971134990/

I just used a non-latex glove from work to fill with water and freeze.

The eyeballs went down a treat, despite my hastily painted capillaries not being very good...

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272972352262/

The worms worked well too, Roz and I made up the mixture and despite a bit of a struggle to fill the straws without the glass overflowing, managed to get them in the fridge to set.  Vikki got them out for me one by one while I was frantically painting the eyeballs and making/setting up various other things!

Image Source

They tasted great!  I used cherry jelly and a bit of vodka to make them.

I was really pleased with our pumpkins as well, I decided to try something different this year and made Blog themed ones with a dragonfly for me and stars for Roz...

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272972331573/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272972333802/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272972415274/

I hand drew the dragonfly, copying the design idea from Pinterest, then punctured along the line before scoring and carving out the top surface of pumpkin for the light to glow through.  Initially it wasn't very bright so I took a thicker layer away...

Due to the curvature of the pumpkin, it was difficult to get the star cookie cutter to punch through so I just used it as a marker hammering it in to make the shape and then cut the stars out using my pumpkin saw.  Carving these two took me 4 hours while watching TV due to their intricacies and trying not to cut too far through when I did the dragonfly background.

Roz carved a very cool white pumpkin which had a scar down one side so we decided a face would look fab.  She was a bit unsure if she would manage the eyes on one of the designs she had in a pumpkin kit but we thought the mouth shape would be perfect to hold one of my mini pumpkins (a design we've seen a lot of this year!)  I suggested trying the technique I used to shape my dragonfly - puncturing dots around the edge to make it easier to cut.  She did a great job and was quite rightfully very proud of it...

The final idea in this PinItDoIt was inspired by this image which required a blacklight to glow...

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272972317037/

I dyed some water green, added a green glowstick and submerged the plastic bones and skulls from some 50p skeletons I took apart.

And of course, there was my bunting :)

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250794272972341733/

So that's my last Halloween post 'til next year, I promise!