Salaric

One of my friends has a birthday that happens to fall exactly on Halloween the 31st of October. We could not make it to his birthday party so I made him this card instead.

I used one card blank and enverlope from The Works in Cheltenham and a set of coloured fine liners from WH Smiths.

I then drew on the card, first off the spooky writing – the HAPPY in red as it was supposed to be dripping blood and the BIRTHDAY in gloopy green writing. As you can see from the photos I did this all free hand and as a result had to break up the word birthday over two lines – I would advise that you measure out where you are going to put the letters before hand.

I then drew things in around the writing that I thought suitably halloween scary like the huanted castle upon a rocky jagged hill, the moon peaking out of the clouds and the silohett of the witch on her broom stick! Along the bottom of the card I drew a cualdren with fumes drifting up to form a skeleton – I wasn’t very happy with the skeleton and if I was to redo the card I would dig out the book Greys Anatomy so that I could copy the skeleton rather than trying to work it out as I drew it. There is also an eyeball complete with optive nerve trailing behind it. I also added a ghost in amoungst the writting and a amphora of poison. Anywhere else on the card that I thought needed something I added little flying bats!

I then coloured it all in – like the posion and the castle but I left the writing uncoloured as i felt it would look better.

This pipe cleaner spider was really easy to make – I used a black pompom, four black fluffy pipe cleaners, two medium goggly eyes and a pair of scissors.

I simply cut each pipe cleaner in half and then twisted them around the black pompom which became the spiders body – the pipe cleaners its eight legs. I then stuck on the eyes which where self adhesive.

This green stick monster or alien depending on what it is doing was deseptively easy to make. I used one medium green pom pom, one green lolly stick, one large goggly eye, two green matalic leaf sequines, one white foam shape, a pair of scissors and white PVA craft glue.

I started off by cutting a slit into the green pompom squeezing in some glue and sticking the green lolly stick into the glue filled whole. I then squeeshed the slit closed around the lolly stick and waited for the glue to dry.

I then stuck on the large goggly eye.

I then cut two slits in the green pompom either side of the eye. I then squeezed glue into the slites and poked the wide rounded ends of the green leaf sequines into the wholes as ears.

Whilst the ears were drying I took the white foam sheet and cut out a zigzag line to make the teeth – I would suggest that you draw on the shape you want before cutting though I didn’t. I then glued the teeth in place.

I got two halloween monster making kits from The Works in Stroud for my Scouts to use. The kit came with moulds of pumkin headed monsters, frankienstien monsters, mummys, vampires and vampire bats. The moulds where in two halves that you had to press together however they where made out of flimsy plastic that I associate with food packaging. Some of them didnt click together properlly and some of them even came out of the box slightly crushed – not a good start.

Still the kids mixed up the plaster in the little grey pouring cups provided in the kit and followed the instructions, but the stuff would not pour into the moulds as the feeder channel of the mould was far too small and on some of the monsters had a nasty sloping bit just before the main shape of the monster was reached. In frustration some of the children tried adding more water but by this point it was starting to dry and had hard lumps in it. Others opened the moulds and sqidged the plaster in having added more powder to it to make it stiffer. They banged the moulds on the table to dislodge the air bubbles but as some of the mould – the mummy in particular had bubbles the size of whole arms that wouldn’t shift the whole thing was a bit of a disastor.

I took the moulds home as you are supposed to remove the monsters from the mould after an hour to let them dry properly. Those we tried to open where just gloopy mess and those that I left once dry just shattered upon open the moulds or if they remained whole they where shapeless blobs.

I thought that the kid was just too hard for the kids and that they must have done something wronge with following the instruction and as I have a huge tub of plaster of paris that we got from Hindles I thought I’d make them a set of the little statues which they could then paint.

However – me and my husband ran into the exact same problems as the kids and our attempt was only slightly better in that we hit the tub we where mixing the plaster in on the workbench to get rid of bubbles before pouring.

But fundimentaly you could not pour the plaster into the moulds as it was too thick and the moulds where badly constructed.

I would say this is the worst craft disastor I’ve ever had and to avoid these kids – I’ve bought other stuff like the big box of craft from the Works and they have been fantastic value for money but this kid definatly isn’t!