Halloween Scary Garden

If you have not caught on yet that I love Fairy Gardens, you should know...I love Fairy Gardens! I have 2 posts on them, both here and here. When I was a wee child, I remember adoring all things tiny- to the point I may or may not have a vague memory of a doctors' visit removing a miniature baby bottle from a nasal cavity. So of course with #Halloween being the absolute best holiday of the year, hands down, there definitely needs to be some sort of miniature garden for the spooky season. One completely dedicated to ghosts, goblins, zombies, spiders, tombstones, etc. and the list goes on. I live in Utah y'all, so having actual live plants with it had to be negotiable.

I decided to try to do this as inexpensively as possible. That always seems to be the best course of action for seasonal decor. so out to the garage I went. Thin scrap wood to make a box? Check. To the kids' art drawer for leftover polymer clay? Check. Ok, what else did I need? 

Here is a list of what I used. I hope you find much of it around the house:

• Wooden Box (to fit the layout of your scary garden)
• Wire (to create picks with the clay)
• Floral Foam (Dollar Store)
• Spanish Moss (Dollar Store)
• Glue gun and glue sticks
• Polymer Clay
• Miniature trees (Hobby Lobby...with coupon!)
• Miniature Wire Fence(leftover from my Fairy Garden)
• Imagination (yes, you do have it)
• Halloween Cobwebs

And, if you plan this with friends, you will cut your cost as well, as with the clay and trees there was too much and too many for one person.

*NOTE: With this post, I decided not put put instructions for all things. As in, I am not going to show you how to sculpt a ghost, or spider etc. You can also find places to purchase these items if you do not want to make them yourself.

I ended up having to buy the trees, and these four blocks of clay. I will say though, that I like the FIMA brand of clay. It is softer and easier to work with. For those of you new to polymer clay, this stuff is really, really cool. You sculpt what you want, and then you bake it. It becomes almost like resin. So it is hard and stays a permanent sculpture that cannot be ruined by being squished.

 

So I had some left over bead board and I cut pieces to form a box. I used wood glue to glue them together because it can be sanded in case you end up with a blob somewhere by accident.

I used the knife block to square up the edges. I glued the two pairs 2 of the corners into an "L" shape. Once they were dry I glued the two L's together. Then, I glued that rectangular shape onto the bottom. While I was waiting for these things to dry, I started sculpting my little creatures.

These are just a few of the items I sculpted. I just sat with my kids for the afternoon and we had a lot of fun! They helped me work the clay to warm it up, but I ended up sculpting all my little guys. My kids sculpted a few things for themselves. I made sure to use wire to create "picks" for these sculptures to stick them into the foam. Insert the wire before cooking.

Once the box was dry it was ready to paint. My bestie and I did this project together. She started painting first and made the paint look streaked like dark wood. When I started I couldn't get the same results, even when we used the same paint!! She looked at me and said "You are too good at painting, you need to do a bad job. Paint badly..." Lol. We totally laughed about it. So for you good painters that want this look- Paint. Badly.

We each used 3 packages of floral foam. Each package has 4 blocks. I had one extra block around the house to be able create chunks for "hills". I didn't take a photograph of the next step but you have to drizzle hot glue in sections and press the spanish moss down. Remove any excess, as it might create too much bulk.

After that, I just started arranging the trees, fence and all the little things that made up my Scary Garden!

And here it is complete. I may add a sign to it later. But right now I am pretty busy, so that might have to be a bit later.

A little black cat, with a zombie arm...

Okay, so I have boys, lots of them. All forms of potty humor are downright hilarious to them. So there had to be poop. I did reroute some forms of "hilariousness" as they wanted the cat to be pooping. Lol :)

I used an extra long wire to keep the ghost hovering above everything so it "floats". When sculpting the spider, I just put the wires in and then baked it. Then I formed the legs after baking it.

I hope this inspired you just the teensiest bit! Happy Halloween! #scarygarden