Pumpkin Pete

With Halloween only 236 days away... yes, I know... but I am ready! This was the perfect project for winter... if you don't mind a little bit of a mess in your house! ;)

While pinning a ton of Halloween ideas, I came across this amazing Grim. After Christmas, I was ready to build him! I don't always click on my pins prior to creating them, so when I found out the Grim was only 5ft tall, I was somewhat disappointed.... but just for a few seconds! I really thought in the pics he was bigger than me, that he was tall, dark and no, not handsome... but Haunting! I wanted mine towering over me. I really don't have any "real" instructions on my guy, b/c I really played it by ear. I went to Home Depot and saw they had a lot of wood in there 70% off cart.... most of this wood is warped or cracked in some way. I found a bunch of these 1x3/4x8 pieces of wood. These would make great limbs! While I was there, I also picked up a bunch of chicken wire, I will talk about this later. I also had a bunch of scrap wood at home, which was used for his torso and neck. 

Excuse the mess in my living & dining room...
you know, projects are a priority! 

Once the base, and skeleton was constructed, I ran 2 cords that were connected together, one to go up to his head, the other down his arm, for the pumpkins he would be holding. I then began wrapping the entire structure with chicken wire, I made a rib cage out of wired coat hangers (these were not chicken wired), coat hangers were also used for toes & fingers. Once the figure was chicken wired, the "real" mess began.... paper-mache! I also don't use a "recipe" for paper-mache... I have always just use flour & water... portions, I couldn't tell you! I really think it depends on your projects... do you want the mixture thick, or more thin. For this guy, I used a more thin mixture, I didn't want the paper-mache to get flaky on me after drying. 

His shoulder horns, are made of complete chicken wire. Pete had a total of 3 layers of paper-mache. I did ask a few of my prop building friends on their thoughts for how many layers he should have, and especially since he was going to be outside.... they all were saying more of the 6+ range. But after the third layer... he was getting heavier, and with his height being 8ft tall, I needed to be careful with that. After all the paper-mache dried, a couple days for each layer, I Modge Podged the whole structure. This, I believe helps seal it. I then found premium exterior paint at Home Depot in their "discounted paint area" (I guess messed up colors)... the color was perfect! I don't even know the color of it, its like a dark woodsy brown color... regular $45... I got the gallon for $9! I painted the first layer on, and was going to paint a second, but when my husband came home, he said he thought just one layer looked the best, b/c it gave Pete this streaky, wood limbs look. 

The three small pumpkins were strung, and his head placed on... I was in LOVE!!! He came out exactly how I wanted.... Tall, Dark and HAUNTING!!! 

I know many of you may be asking about the pumpkins, and his head... What are they? How were they made? That's a whole other post, you can find here! 

Pumpkin Pete!

Great Stuff Pumpkins

Great Stuff is such an interesting product! It can create so many amazing things, at the same time being scary to use! The first time I used this stuff was when I created a pumpkin head for my "Pete". I was in need of a rather large foam pumpkin to carve. It not being the "Halloween Season" a little hard to find, discounted.... and I refused to order one from the popular company that makes them! Besides that they are pricey, the shipping was almost just as much! I turned to my prop making friends, they suggested I use great stuff, and showed me a cool video done by Alen Hopps. You can see his video here.
But let me say with many asterisks.**** He makes it look so much easier than it really is! Watch the video if your interested in making them, but here is my experience, and thoughts!
I went and bought a large beach ball... the biggest I could find! I took an old sheet that I wouldn't be using anymore (scrap fabric), and wrapped it. The fabric needs to be wet, it helps cure the "Great Stuff". Then I took another piece of wet fabric, laid it out, and sprayed the great stuff in the center, like a base for the wrapped beach ball. I sat the wrapped beach ball in the center of the stuff. Then with my daughter holding the ball in place, I just started spraying Great Stuff all over the ball, the pull up the bottom layer fabric, closing it with electrical tape. Then I take electrical tape, and wrap the ball like how a pumpkin has creases.

After a few hours of drying, and you will feel it begin to harden, I then cut away the electrical tape, and slowly and gently peel off the fabric layer. You need to be careful doing this, b/c some areas may be a little thin, and will tear easily if it is. After I get it completely unwrapped, I noticed I had a few bare spots, as if I didn't spray enough stuff, or it fell a little before it got a chance to set, so I took more great stuff and sprayed in those areas. Those areas did become bumpy, but I was ok with it ... It made it look as if it was an old pumpkin. 

 The fabric hanging from the top, I used it as a base to create the stem of the pumpkin. The bottom of the pumpkin was a little bare/thin... but that was ok with me, b/c I cut a hole in that area... I needed my pumpkin to be hollow, so that I could use it as a head. After I cut the hole out, and the stem part was dried, I gently pulled out the layer of fabric and the beach ball that was inside. I carved a face that I wanted for him too. When carving great stuff, its very similar to carving the craft foam pumpkins that you buy. 

It was suggested that I Drilock the pumpkin. Drilock is a product that will seal from outside moisture, usually the product is used for homes ... I think to seal cracks and what not. This Was The Worst Mistake I Did!!! B/c I carved the pumpkin, the Drilock is a heavy paint-like substance... it made his upper lip area fall down some. After the drilock dried, I ended up carving a little more to try to open up his mouth some. Since I was using a exterior paint, to paint the head, I was no longer concerned with sealing it. I painted the inside & outside orange. Then I had some extra outdoor green, brown & black paint to use on the stem and accent it some. In all it worked out. I ended up making 3 more Great Stuff pumpkins... smaller ones, they were also difficult to do. I say difficult, b/c using Great Stuff for this type of project... you have to have everything ready, prepared, and be able to work quickly. The product is hard to control. Oh! Wear Gloves!!! Most important thing! lol

s'more fun….

Who doesn't like s'mores!?! We are currently working on a "fire-pit" area. We have a nice gas fire-pit… but what I mean about us working on it, is I have all these plans for the area, and the chairs around it. The chairs are a whole other post, that when I get that post done, I will place a link in here for it! But back to S'mores….

I decided to create some permanent roasters…. I didn't want to use wired coat hangers, sticks from the back yard, or any other make shift item that we use then throw out. Plus, I wanted them cute! lol 

I bought two 4ft 3/4 diameter wood dowels. I cut eight 6" pieces out of each rod. This gave me 16 handles. I wanted to make this many, for parties, sleep overs... we would have plenty of roasters! I then bought eight 3ft galvanized rods (non threaded). I cut all of these in have, so 18" each. I took all my my roaster handles and drilled a 2" hole on one end of each handle. Then using Gorilla Glue, I glued each rod into a handle. After the glue dried, I had each of my kids paint their own roaster, and I painted one for Ben & I .... then painted the rest of them. On our personal ones, we have our named on them, and a few of them have cute sayings like, "I'm On Fire", "S'more Fun", and "Boomer Sooner" ...of course! To do these little sayings, I found little stickers at Hobby Lobby... I would paint a small area that I wanted the letter coloring to be, then after that part dried, applied my saying on top of that paint.... then painted over the stickers, and decorated the roaster how we wanted them. After the paint completely dried, remove the stickers, and your saying looks great! I then sprayed them all with a  clear coat, to seal the paint. 

* We have used these several times, and I can say when you go to wash the sticky marshmallow off the roaster, you need to dry the skewer part immediately, or they will rust.