Halloween Costume Contest Cat Trophies

     I originally wasn't planning on making trophies anything like these.  I had seen some skulls on pedestals on Dollar Tree's website and planned on buying some and decorating them, but my local Dollar Tree didn't have any in stock.  The semester is really starting to pick up, so I decided that while I had a few minutes to spare this weekend, I needed to finish the trophies.  I started thinking about what supplies I had around the house and I remembered that I had several cat figurines that I could use.  I thought it might be neat to dress black cats up in costumes.
     I asked Brian what he would dress up as if he was a cat and he said a shark (there's a meme we have on our fridge with a cat wearing a knitted shark hat that says, "sometimes you have to tell yourself "I am a shark" and attack the day).  I remembered the shark cat riding Roomba videos and Brian suggested making the cat's base into a Roomba.  That's how the shark cat trophy came to be.  For the others, I got my inspiration from a "costumes for cats" search on Pinterest.
     I love how these came out, especially the shark one.  I'll have a hard time surrendering them at my Halloween party.

Materials:
*Cat figures
*Jar lids
*Black paint
*Red paint
*Paintbrush
*Hot glue
*Felt, cardstock, and other decorative elements
*Paper
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:

*Glue cats to the jar lids.

*Paint the cats and their bases black.  Let dry.  Apply multiple coats if necessary.

*Paint red eyes on the cats.

*Add costumes.  For the bat/gargoyle creatures, I cut some wing shapes from black felt and glued them to the cat figurines.

*For the Beanie Baby, I punched a red heart from cardstock, wrote "ty" in white gel pen, poked a threaded needle through the cardstock, and tied the tag around the cat's neck.

*Shark cat riding a Roomba I just kind of winged, so I can't explain it quite as well as I'd like.  I cut out two shapes like a quarter of an ellipse from blue felt and sewed them together along the curved edge.  I then cut out a row of teeth from cream colored felt and stitched them to the shark costume's mouth.  I cut a blue rectangle from felt and sewed the shark head hood onto it and then trimmed it down to fit around the cat.  I glued the costume to the cat (just the "belted" part that goes around the cat's belly) and then cut out a fin from blue felt and glued it to the costume.  For the Roomba base, I painted the outer edge black and then painted the inside silver.

*Print out labels for the various awards and glue them to the bases.

Shark cat for "Most Creative" costume award.

Bat cats (or gargoyle cats) for "Best Couple/Group Costume."

Beanie Baby cat for "Best Costume."

Halloween Mummy Veggie "Meatballs"

     This Halloween snack is almost too cute to eat.  The recipe is from Pillsbury, but made it vegetarian and modified it a little.

Ingredients:

*Veggie "meatballs" (I used Nate's Zesty Italian Meatless Meatballs)
*Crescent roll dough
*Marinara sauce

Tools:

*Knife
*Toothpick

Directions:

*Roll out the crescent roll dough.

*Cut the dough into thin strips.

*Wrap the strips of dough around the "meatballs" to form "bandages."  Make sure to leave a gap between the bandages for the "face."

*Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown and the "meatballs" are cooked all the way through.

*Use a toothpick to make marinara sauce "eyes."

*For a dinner, serve with spaghetti and crescent rolls.

Beware of Werewolf Halloween Display

     Sometimes the scariest things are not what you see, but rather what you don't see.  This Halloween display is disconcerting without any blood or gore.  It's also relatively compact, making it an ideal decoration if you don't have a lot of room to store Halloween props.  I crafted the femur for this display from Model Magic, but you could use plastic skeletal remains as well.

Werewolf Collar

Materials:
*Craft foam
*Empty duct tape roll
*Brown paint
*Paintbrush
*All purpose adhesive
*Scissors
*Aluminum foil
*Iron
*Chain
*Metal links
*Knife

Directions:

*Take a sheet of aluminum foil and crumple it up, then carefully unfold it.

*Place the aluminum foil over the craft foam.

*With the iron on low heat, run the iron over the aluminum foil.  It should melt creases and wrinkles into the craft foam.

*Take the duct tape roll and cut straight across it so that it opens up.

*Cut the foam to fit around the duct tape roll and glue it on.

*Cut holes into the "collar" where you want your chain and metal links to go.  I used a kitchen knife to do this, but there are probably better ways to do this.

*Paint the collar brown and then set aside to dry.

*Once dry, add the metal links and chain to the collar.

"Beware of Werewolf" Sign

Materials:
*Cardstock and printer
*Laminator (optional)
*Long wooden stake
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:

*Print out the sign below on cardstock.

*Laminate the sign (optional, but will make it weatherproof).

*Glue the sign to the wooden stake.

Witch's Broom Pendant Necklace

Materials:
*Thin wire
*Thicker wire
*Wire cutters
*Ribbon
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:

*To create the broom handle, cut off a length of the thicker wire twice as long as you'd like the handle to be.  Fold the wire in half and twist, leaving a loop at the top wide enough for the ribbon to fit through.

*To create the main part of the broom, cut off a number of segments of the thinner wire, all equal in length.  Fold in half.  Cluster the segments together to form a broom shape.

*Insert the handle into the center of the cluster.

*Wind a thicker piece of wire around the cluster to bind the broom pieces together.  If the handle is not secure after binding, if it feels loose or slips out, glue it in place.  Let dry.

*Determine how long you'd like your necklace to be and cut off the appropriate length of ribbon.  Slide the ribbon through the loop in the broom handle and then knot together the ends of the ribbon.

The necklace adds a nice touch to any witch costume.

Halloween Foam Tombstone: Adventures with a Cheap Rotary Cutting Tool

     Each year I try making a new foam tombstone for my Halloween cemetery.  I've had good success using an X-acto knife to carve insulation foam and craft foam and okay success carving Styrofoam, but the problem with these methods is that the carving is so time consuming.
     If you watch video tutorials on carving foam tombstones, you'll notice that many people use a Dremel with a special blade and attachment for their carving.  The cutting process is much faster and the results are amazing.  However, Dremels can be expensive.  What if you want the speed of cutting foam tombstones that a Dremel gives, but you don't have the money?
     Enter the inexpensive rotary cutting tool.  You can find these at discount hardware stores for as little as $5.  My brother gave me one as a gift last fall and I figured I'd see how it worked.  I've never used one for carving before, but instead of doing the sensible thing and practicing on scrap foam before getting started, I just went for it.  I used the thinnest tip it came with for carving the letters and a thicker one for the scratches.  Given that this was my first attempt with a rotary cutting tool and I wasn't very patient, I think it came out pretty well, about comparable to the stones I carved with an X-acto knife.

Materials:
*Insulation foam
*Rotary cutting tool
*Paint in various shades of gray
*Paintbrush
*Hand saw or bread knife
*Pen

Directions:

*Decide what shape and size tombstone you would like.  If you do a quick search, you can find tons of templates and design ideas online.  This one's a reference to Brian's story Fire at Dusk.

*Using your saw or bread knife (a decent substitute if you don't have a saw on hand), cut your foam to size.  If you're going for a narrower stone, you might be able to get two stones out of this one sheet of foam.

*Sketch or trace on the design you would like to use for the top of the headstone and cut it out using the saw.

*Sand down any rough edges with sandpaper.  You may also want to sand down any sharp corners to make the stone look aged, if that's the style you're going for.

*Print out your design and center it on the foam and then trace over it with a pen, pressing down hard enough to indent the foam.

*Trace over your indentation with a pen

*Cut out the lettering using your rotary cutting tool.  You'll want to trace the outline of the letter first with the tool and then go back and cut out the inside.

*Paint the stone using the darker gray color, making sure to fill in all of the crevices to the best of your ability.  I had to do two coats to get all the nooks and crannies.  If you have fine details, you can use the end of a needle to squeeze paint into the crevices.

*Combine the two shades of gray until you get a color that is a shade or two lighter than the dark gray.  Paint the surface of the stone, but skip the inscription.  This will enhance the visibility of the inscription.

Halloween Creepy Rag Doll

     Dolls have a special place in our culture as a beloved plaything, but some can be downright creepy.  With frog-like button eyes and a too wide stitched mouth, this doll is the perfect addition to any Halloween scene.

Materials:
*Cloth for the doll's head, torso, and limbs
*Scrap cloth for the doll's clothing
*Needle
*Black thread
*Yarn for hair
*Buttons for eyes
*Stuffing
*Scissors
*Metallic marker or chalk
*All purpose adhesive
*Pencil
*Paper
*Ribbon to go around the waist of the doll's skirt

Directions:

*Sketch or print a template for your doll.  I didn't think to scan mine before using it, but if you look at the picture from the next step you'll get a sense of how to draw a template of your own.

*Trace the template components onto the respective pieces of fabric and cut out.

*Sew a face onto your doll.  The eye placement may look normal now, but once you sew together the doll and stuff it, they're going to be closer to the sides of its face, giving it an amphibious look.

*Place two of the leg pieces one atop the other, right sides facing in, and stitch together, leaving an opening at the top for the stuffing.

*Turn the legs right side in (you might want to use something like a pencil or a chopstick to aid you if the legs are really thin) and stuff.  Sew closed.

*Repeat with the other leg.

*Cut out scraps of fabric to make the doll's top and sew or glue to the torso.

*Sew together the two pieces of the doll's body, decorated sides facing in, leaving an opening at the bottom for stuffing.

*Turn the doll's body right side in and stuff.

*Insert the doll's legs into the bottom of the doll's torso and sew closed.

*Sew together and stuff the arms.

*Sew the arms onto the doll's torso.

*Cut out two triangular-ish shapes for the doll's sleeves.

*Glue on the sleeves with an all purpose or fabric adhesive.

*Cut out scraps of fabric to use for the doll's skirt.

*Glue on the skirt.  Glue some ribbon around the waist of the skirt.

*The final part of the process is to sew on the doll's hair.  I don't think I could explain how to do this in words, so here's the video I watched to learn how to do it.

Glittery Rainbow Picture Frame

     Bring some color and sparkle to any room with a glittery rainbow frame.

Materials:

*Picture frame
*White paint
*Red paint
*Orange paint
*Yellow paint
*Green paint
*Blue paint
*Purple paint
*Black paint
*Glitter paint
*Sponge paintbrush

Directions:

*If the picture frame is not already white, paint it white.  Let dry.  I only used one coat of white paint, which did not fully cover the black of the frame, which meant I had to apply more paint later in certain places to cover the dark spots.  You may want to do multiple coats to avoid having to do this.

*Once the frame is painted white and completely dry, paint your first color in one of the corners of the frame.  I started with a pink, which I made by mixing red and white paints

*For your next color, start by marking off the places where you want this layer of color to end and then fill in, working your way back toward the first color.

*Once you reach the first color, mix together the two colors a little where they meet.

*Repeat the process for the second color with the third, then fourth, then fifth, etc. colors.  The more intermediate colors you use (e.g. going from yellow to yellow-green to green-yellow to green instead of from yellow straight to green), the more the colors will blend and transition into one another.

*Once you've finished painting the various colors, let dry.

*Once the frame is dry, paint on a layer of glitter paint.  Let dry.