Halloweenin'

Hello! First, the Indianapolis city guide is up and you can see it here. They included a lot of my photos. See if you can find me (I'm in a reflection, oops).

 Now, on to Halloween.

Eyeball plant stakes

I'm/we're doing a sci fi theme this year with monster plants. I have a small container garden's worth of faux potted plants and an assortment of plant stakes to enhance the live plants already present. This idea came along because I saw a great DIY from the prop master of Home and Family and I am a plant hoarder year round so it goes well with what's already on hand.

The image above is some of the stakes stuck in a rosemary plant. The stakes are easy and minimal. I used sticks from the yard, spray paint, 1.5" styrofoam balls, spackle, acrylic paint, and gloss coating. Find some sticks and paint them green. water down some spackle and coat the foam balls, allow to dry overnight. Spray them with white paint. Then I painted they eye with acrylic paints. I made a circle and watered down the paint in the center to create a darker outer ring. Once that dried a bit, I used the end of a paintbrush dipped in black to make the pupil. Then I let that dry and sprayed them with a few coats of gloss. After the gloss dried, I used a glue gun to attach the eye to sticks. On the first ones I added leaves and green fringe, but I decided I liked the minimal look best. Drying is slow, but assembly is quick so this project offered some instant gratification and that was nice after making larger carnivorous plants.

Here are the foam balls drying. I have a fancy system of discarded packaging and toothpicks.

This photo shows some of the process and that my cat is very helpful. I put the balls on toothpicks before coating them and stuck them in some packaging to stay upright while drying. I also kept them this way to while painting. I removed the toothpicks when it was time to assemble everything.

I'll have some more prop photos and DIY's after proper pictures are taken. If you would like some inspiration, try these sites:

Pumpkinrot

102 Wicked Things To Do 

Dave Lowe Designs 

There is still so much to do... make plant slime, sew a costume, paint more eyeballs, set up lights, etc.

xoxo,

b