Beware...

Good Morning everyone

Although its a bit early for halloween i had the urge to make something for my craft friends birthday as she absolutely loves anything spooky. I came up with this home decor piece which can either be hung up or stood up on its pumpkin feet. 

I have put step-by-step below with how i built it up.  Once i had the background and paint work finished i added a black die cut spider web which i added touches of silver paint to, 3 tim holtz chip board sayings and covered with glossy accents, a candle and then the plastic spider, fly & ants, these i covered with black gesso to take away the plastic look and then a touch of black cadence dora paint. . 

I sealed the final piece with mod podge to give it some protection

I took a chipboard page from a very old chipboard album i bought and never used, added polyfiller through a crackle stencil to give a spider web effect and then just dabbed the excess onto the side of the panel to give some texture and interest to the finish effect.   I glued 2 little wooden fences into place.

I took 2 of the larger polystyrene pumpkins and cut slots into them to slide the bottom of the chipboard into and glued into place, this gave it feet so it can stand up on its own.  I cut a 3rd large pumpkin in half and glued one half into place in the middle.  I cut a smaller pumpkin in half and glued both halves into place, building up my pumpkin stack.  

I chopped the head & one arm off a plastic skeleton, pushed the neck into one of the pumpkins and the arm to the top of the pumpkins.  I took a plastic arm and glued between the bottom pumpkins.  Once the glue was totally dry i covered it all in black gesso.

I added a couple of small tim holtz pumpkins to the top of my pumpkin stack & I then splodged on acrylic paints in orange, green & purple - Yes it is a right mess but a necessary step to give the final finish depth and colour rather than just flat black.  Even once you add all the top layers of paint these colours really do still show through. I also rounded the top corners with my WRMK corner chomper which easily cuts the chipboard

I then dry brushed on more black gesso

I then dry brushed silver & black candence dora paints to the background, these are super shimmery in real life and when the light hits them.  I built up the pumpkins with orange & gold dora paints & acrylic paints, adding little by little until it was at a level i was happy with which happened over several days. 

This shows the bits before i assembled, collected over the last few years, the plastic skeletons from poundland (I think) are great as for this project i just cut the head and arm off one which leaves more body parts for another project.  The plastic dolls arms came from poundland many years ago too, the insects were morrisons and the polystyrene pumpkins from ebay

Id love to enter the following:

http://unicornchallenge.blogspot.com/2023/09/challenge-91-layer-it-up.html  - ive added lots of layers of paint

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http://getcreativechallenges.blogspot.com/2023/09/125-pumpkin-spice-please.html

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https://twooldbatshalloweenchallenge.blogspot.com/2023/09/september-anything-halloween.html

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https://halloweencraftsallyearround.blogspot.com/2023/08/aug-15-sept-14-challenge-7.html

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https://mostmagicaltimeoftheyear.blogspot.com/2023/09/challenge-12-most-magical-anything.html