I thought I’d make an actual blog post of this year’s
Halloween party, because last year I didn’t take any pictures, mostly because
of the low light conditions, and this year I had a lot of fun with the theme
and learned a bit in the process.
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| Our little voodoo altar |
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| nothing sinister going on here... |
I wanted to make a tree for our ‘bayou’ area and was pretty
inspired by a pin of a creepy tree made with a cement form and celluclay. So I got
one cylinder cement form, sawed in half, and made it so it could be unstacked
and stored easily with a cardboard inner connector- thing. I didn’t have any
celluclay and I wanted a slightly more gnarled look for my tree, so I (and a
very helpful friend!) used a couple bottles of expanding foam (Great Stuff in
the states) and some crumpled up newspaper to make roots, extra mass, and
something for the foam to grab onto. The
surface of the cement forms does not like the foam, so a coat of primer on that
might also work. After it dried, on went
the brown, then grey spray paint. If I
had more room and I wasn’t so impatient I may have primed it, and then applied
the foam all over in sections with the cylinder on its side. That would
probably look good as well.
It didn’t really look so hot until some moss was slapped on
there. Cheapest place online was
SaveOnCrafts, but their Spanish moss left much to be desired. A big box of the fresh stuff wasn’t as
accessible here, unfortunately. For the
branches I wanted something lightweight, cheap, and quick – and pool noodles
were on sale! They were hung from the ceiling, and this method would have
worked much better if not for my shitty drop ceiling.
I intended to make more sprawling, beautiful branches, but, real
life, dangit.
After searching around for camo netting in vain, I broke
down and bought one of those cheap fake hedges.
I took some cheesecloth and dyed it with food coloring and coffee and
draped it around for a swampy effect, and got some greens and vines from the
Daiso. At this point I was getting a
little stingy but with as dark as it was I think it sufficed.
I couldn’t do a New Orleans theme without trying to
replicate a beautiful mausoleum.
This project was a learning process.
I learned that I hate
Styrofoam. I hate cutting it, cleaning
it up, soldering pretty lines into it, making a downright spectacle of myself
trying to fit it into my tiny car, and most especially, I hate painting it.
After it ate one can of spray paint, I tried to apply it to
its textured surface with several different brushed and sponges, in a tedious,
infuriating process. I actually made two
of these tombs, but after painting one I decided to save the other for next
year.
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| Saving up lots of expletives for next year. |
The sign is based closely on a real one in New Orleans. And the voodoo dolls were based on authentic
ones (more creepy than cute).
I turned our tub into a mini swamp complete with a corpse (again, coffee and food
coloring).
On the menu we had southern fare like jambalaya, gumbo,
cornbread, voodoo doll cookies, and plenty of hurricanes (It was a potluck and
lots of other things too).
I had a blast and despite the work and having absolutely no
idea what I’m doing, I really enjoyed making all of this, especially when I can
enjoy it coming together with a group of fabulously lunatic friends but I
seriously need to start in July from now on.
I didn’t get inspired until late August and that is not soon
enough! But next year, fingers crossed,
we will be able to drive ten minutes to Home Depot where everything is in
English and then it’s game on.
I’ll make a separate post for the costume I made; it’s still
not 100% finished, and I definitely need to make repairs before Shibuya.
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