A Peanuts Halloween

THE GREAT PUMPKIN IS COMING! 

This year I am going to do it!  I'm going to create my own pumpkin patch!  I have dream of this for years and years. This year it IS going to happen.  I looked all over and found the preassembled Peanuts Pumpkin Patch from $70 to $135. BoOOOOOoooo Scary!

It is work, but fun crafting. I have started to create the characters for my personal use in my yard. I found a picture online of the main characters at Halloween.  I started with Charlie Brown, the easiest, a circle with a white trash bag and black gorilla tap circles all over it.  Add a laminated brown bag with a "rock". I have yet to attach the grounding stakes.  

I drew Sally's face and painted it the closest colors I have, gave her a blue plastic bow from a black trash bag.  I will laminate or cover the painted face with packing tape and attach her to some kind of grounding stake.  

Next is Linus. I looked at his image online and drew him as best I could. Yes, this project does depend on your skills to copy the infamous characters, but they are rather easy with practice. I will cover his face as well with lamination or packing tape and attach a grounding stake. It is a month until the Great Pumpkin arrives but I thought I would share this early if you wanted to create the same scene in your yard.

HAND DRAWN LINUS

HAND DRAWN LUCY AS WITCH

The plan is to make Lucy with her mask, a witches hat and a cape made out of that black garbage bag mentioned earlier. There is one other character, PigPen as a ghost in a dirty white garbage bag and the pumpkins made out of cardboard,painted, laminated, staked. All with stakes and sun-powered lighting for the night time.  I will continue to add pictures as I go along.

What about Snoopy and the Red Baron? You say. I'm thinking of making the dog house, out of cardboard, Snoopy and Woodstock and a byplane to put in my front window above the pumpkin patch display, lit from behind with Snoopy's silhouette in front of the moon.  A lot of work? yes, but a dream come true.  I will share the progress as I move along. So far the cost of my project: $0 I recycled cardboard, got the paints from reviewing, tape and stakes that I had around the house.  Being a frugal crafter, you look to reuse almost everything and say "yes" to free supplies.

Here's Snoopy!:

I covered all the characters with laminate sheets and attached them with wire to garden wire fencing. Unfortunately, they did not get put outside.  I am temporarily disabled and my roommates poooed out on putting them up.   THE GREAT PUMPKIN DIDN'T BRING THEM ANYTHING!!!  See how that works!!  Stay tuned, next year...to see the whole display!

Happy Halloween ~ Marie
ps "curse you red baron"


THE TERRIBLE THREESOME OF WITCHES
I rarely work on one thing at a time. If you are a crafter you know, that while one things dries, the next thing can be worked on.  As the Peanuts characters were coming together, I started to work on my "Terrible Threesome of Witches" flying around a cauldron.  I spotted the idea on Pinterest and I really, really wanted to try it with what I had on hand.  

I had a deli muffin lid that I had saved. I sanded the outside and then painted it black.  I gave it a metal hanger handle.

How to make the witches?  I was sitting in the kitchen when I looked at a gallon jug of Arizona tea, and I saw a face in it. I turned it upside down, cut out a mouth, painted it green. I painted the face. Then I gave it a yellow pon pom for a wart.  The hair is yarn pulled through a cardboard circle. The hat, a cardboard circle with a cone on top and covered with a black garbage bag.  The google eyes worked well.  

One of the "Gruesome Threesome" witch heads

The other two witches were made in the same way, but they came out with characters of their own.  The bodies were fashioned from wire hangers for wide shoulders, the head attached to the hook of the hanger. The head and shoulders attached to garden spikes I found in the yard. I draped a black garbage bag over the shoulders.  I cut gnarly hands out of purple, green and yellow foam and attached them to the bag.  In their hands I placed "witches' brooms" that I had made.  They were to be put at an angle so as to look as though they were flying. These, too, were to go out in the yard, circling a cauldron of tissue paper flames with orange and yellow lead lights in the cauldron.  I added a bit of quilting fluff to the cauldron to look like steam.  I was thinking of using dry ice on Halloween to add to the affect.  

The brooms were made from real sticks or limbs I found in my yard.  The brushes of the brooms were made from two liter soda bottles. I cut the bottom off the bottle.  I cut strips of the rest of the bottle up to the top of the bottle, leaving the top in tack. The bottle opening became the hole for the broomstick. I may run a tutorial on the broomsticks on YouTube. I may run an entire tutorial on the entire brood on YouTube if there is enough interest.  Please comment below if you would like to see the tutorial.

Alas, I could not persuade my roomies to put them out in the yard. Darn party poopers!! So the witches joined us indoors much to their chagrin.  Next year, I swear! I will be on my feet or find someone just as spirited to put up my decorations.

As I worked on the witches, I saw another face. FRANKENSTEIN....I fashioned his face similar to the witches.  I did not complete Frankie. I am going to collect clothes, boots, etc. to finish his body.  Maybe I'll dig up a brain!  brewhahahahaha!

 I also did some candle covers cut out of patterns from Silhouette on my Silhouette Portrait, to decorate the house. I put together some jewelry for myself.  I had been hoarding the beads for years.

Halloween Pins

Halloween Earrings

Halloween Necklace

I just realized, I never took pictures of my potion and spells bottles and books.  Well I will l and post them next year along with my Peanuts and witches display and my store bought Peanuts Pumpkin Patch.

I HOPE THE GREAT PUMPKIN WAS GOOD TO YOU!

~ Marie

HOW TO MAKE WITCHES' SHOES FROM A PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE

Again, looking through my pictures, I spotted something I totally forgot I had done.  WITCHES SHOES!  I wanted to make the shoes to go with witches' brooms to go outside my front door with the sign that says "WITCHES PARKING ONLY! ALL OTHERS WILL BEe TOAD!"  

I made the shoes from a water bottle. I cut the foot hole in the side of the bottle. I cut off the top of another bottle and used it for a heel.  

I taped the heel on the side of the bottle, widening it with cardstock.  I put a piece of aluminum foil in the top of the bottle, bent in a hook.  From there I covered the shoe with paper napkins and newspaper, as it formed a covering for the shoe.  When it was dry, I painted and decorated the shoe as gaudy as a witche's shoe might be.  The tricky part was getting the second shoe to look like the matching shoe for the first shoe.

Here is the final result:

Don't try to wear them. Your feet will sweat too much! lol