It's ShowTIME!
Whats up Flockers! Well its that time of year again, Halloween. When I'm getting ready for any event sometimes the ideas are few and far between and sometimes it hits you like a ton of bricks. This year it hit me like a ton of bricks! I have always been a fan of Tim Burton and I have never did anything inspired by his work and I have tone of stuff inspired by his work so it made perfect sense. So this year for Halloween in the Kingdom its all things Tim Burton!
The Tree with the Most!
Let's start with the tree, Of course I pulled out my Favorite Treetopia Tree, The white flocked Frozen Fir. Ya'll I don't know why but this tree just always looks good. I don't normally go for a pre-lit tree, they never have enough lights, but this one does. Once the tree was up and a little shaping done I started to fill in some of the inside areas with purple, lime green and black balls. If you put balls in open areas toward the inside of the tree it adds depth. You never want your tree to look like you just hang everything on the outside of it, you want to draw the eye in. Now that the inside of the tree is taken care of we can start working on the outside. I found some great Eyeball ornaments at Dollar Tree and mixed them with some DIY Bug ornaments that are made from other things I got from dollar Tree. I will talk about these again in a few. What Beetlejuice anything would be complete without some flies (Zagnut Bar Scene) These great Flies are made by Midwest Creek, I found them at a second hand shop a few years ago still in the package and had no clue what I would do with them, But I knew I needed them. Of course when doing thinking about Beetlejuice you can't help but think of the Sandworm that tortures anyone who steps out of the house. These are a DIY project also that was inspired by a Jennifer Perkins project that you should definitely check out. We will also comeback to these great Sandoworms in another post and later in this one.
Wanna Take a Ride on the Carousel.
Do you remember that scene when Beetlejuice Turned in to a carnival attraction? I figured that Carousel hat he had on would be the perfect topper for the tree. Of course you can't just go to the store and say hey I need to buy one of those Carousel hats from Beetlejuice, So I would need to make it. I went to the dollar Tree and got a buggy and filled it up with things that I thought could work. I literally sat in the floor and started trying to build it in the middle of the store. I decided to go with a few octagon gift boxes, duct tape, some toy bugs, a frisbee, some poster board and some paper straws. I stacked the boxes together bottom to bottom and taped them together to make the center. The boxes have six sides so I just covered each side in black and white duct tape, doing one side black next side white until it was all covered. I then glued a frisbee to the top to support the weight of the actual carousel top. The top is made from poster board triangles that I covered in duct tape as well, then taped them all together to form the carousel top. The triangles are 8" tall and 6" wide. Once it was all taped together I pocked holes in the tape between each triangle every inch so I could add some mini LED lights to make it light up. Now that the lights are in I just glued it to the top of the frisbee to create the carousel. There was still a need for the bugs to look like you could ride them so I painted the bugs to match the tree and drilled holes thru the center just big enough to get a wooden skewer thru. Once the skewers were in I slipped a black and white straw over the skewers and hot glued it in to place. I let everything dry over night to make sure it would all stay together. I then attached the bugs to each corner of the carousel top using hot glue and a little tape to make sure they wouldn't fall off. It fit on top the tree perfectly, I could have been happier with how it turned out.
Whoa. Sandworms.
You hate 'em right?
So Let's talk about 'em. I found a wonderful little shop on Etsy that had the perfect Sandworms for this project and also had another item I was going to use for another Tim Burton project. The Sandworms were great, measured 8ft long! I ordered them, Payed for them, and they never arrived! After several messages back and forth between myself and the shop owner she quit communicating and I had to open a case against her. I did finally get my money back and found out there were several other she had done this to. So now I had to create my own version of a Sandworm. I remembered a blog post from Jennifer Perkins where she used pool noodles and socks to create pieces of candy. I figured I could use this same method to create my Sandowrms. I used two different size noodles to add a lil contrast between them. For the sandworms I used black and white knee high tights each noodle took two tights. I slid them on just like you would put them on yourself and where the tops meet in the middle I just added a little hot glue so the would stay connected. To attach them to the tree I poked a really heavy duty piece of wire thru the ends and twisted it together to make a loop that I could attach to the inside of the tree. I am actually happier with this then I think I would have been with the ones that never came in.
Flies, Roaches and Centipedes Oh My...
The DIY Bug ornaments for this tree are really easy to make. You will need a pack of small toy bugs, some foam board, ribbon, pipe cleaners, duct tape and spray paint.
First- You will need to cut shapes out of the foam board to make the actual ornaments.
Second- Grab your Spray Paint and spray half of your bugs black and the other half white.
Third- Cover you foam shapes with duct tape, half in black and half in white.
Fourth- Hot glue the black bugs to the white shapes and white bugs to the black shapes.
Fiftieth- Take your pipe cleaners and hot glue them around the edge of your shapes.
Sixth- Make a ribbon loop and hot glue to the front top of your shape to use to hang from.
Seventh- Make a small bow to hot glue over wear you attached the ribbon.
6ft, 7ft, 8ft.. Table
I love a good table setting. I decided to carry the black and white on to the table also. The table runner was a five minute DIY. One yard of black and white stripped duct cloth fabric trimmed to size ironed the edges facing the back and used white duct tape to hold edges down. I could have sewed them just as quick but my machine wasn't set up at that time. I topped it off with some black and white pumpkins I found at target last year mixed with some Opalhouse Brass Snake candle Holders with white tappers candle that I stripped using black electrical tape. For the actual centerpiece I used air dry clay to make the Sandworms . I rolled them out and inserted a heavy wire thru them, once they dried I used painters tape to make the stripes and just sprayed them with black spray paint. The Handbook was made from and old book and a printed out template of the cover. The base is a styrofoam ball covered in moss and a few Purple Poppies.
I too am Strange and Unusual...
Best line of the movie! Well there you have it, Part one of Halloween in the Kingdom, A tribute to the genius that is Tim Burton. I hope y'all enjoyed my re-imagined version of Beetlejuice. If you do any of the DIY project from this post or would like more info on any of them feel free to reach out to me and share your projects. Now go get on it!