Sup Flock! Part Two of Halloween in the Kingdom (A Tribute to Tim Burton), The Nightmare Before Christmas. Although Tim Burton has had tons of great works, it seems that Nightmare Before Christmas is possibly his most well known. There are so many things that you could pull from this movie to use. I decided to take my que from the part where the toys come to life, I figured it was a great way to try some DIY projects!
A Tall, Tall Tree...
Sometimes you want what you just can't find. The black tree I wanted was nowhere to be found. I really wanted an 8ft tree for this project and couldn't find one in my budget but I already had two 6ft tall black trees that I could combine together. I tried to just connect them together like you would any other tree but the poles wouldn't fit inside each other, so I went back to the drawing board. I had the idea to put a piece of 8ft conduit into an outdoor umbrella stand then zip tie each section of the tree to the conduit along the way. Surprise! It worked! You just have to make sure to attach the tree in the right way to the pole so it continues the tree shape. It helps if you bend the branches down toward the ground, that way there won't be too many gaps.
Making Christmas, I mean Halloween...
This tree really needed some Jack in the boxes, so of course I was off to Dollar Tree again. I swear the people that work at Dollar Tree probably think i am 100% insane. I picked up some pumpkins, large square gift boxes with lids and more duct tape. To make the actual box for the base of Jack in the box I used two boxes tapped bottom to bottom with a hole cut in the base for the pole of the Jack to go thru. I covered the boxes with orange scrapbook paper and lined the boxes with black and orange plaid paper. The "spring" is made from a hose I found at a home improvement store. It is similar to a dryer hose but much smaller, It's actually made to use with a dishwasher. The head is made from a craft pumpkin from Dollar Tree. I sprayed it with an brighter orange and then hand painted the face. I turned the pumpkin upside down because this shape looked better. The head is attached to the pipe with hot glue.
Not all the snakes are poisonous...
So in the movie the toy snake comes to life and eats the tree, this snake was not going to eat the tree. If you have read my Beetlejuice post, then you know I ordered a sandworm and snake from an Etsy store and they never came in. I ran across a great DIY from Jennifer Perkins that I used for the Beetlejuice Tree using Pool Noodles and I also knew that could workt for this project as well. For this tree I used three pool noodles: 2 full size and one I cut in half. I repeated the same thing with this project as I did with the Beetlejuice Sandworms. I put orange and black striped socks on the noodles and hot glued them together in the middle. On the two halves I only used one sock for each section. I used thick wire on each to attach it to the tree.
"I am the shadow on the moon at night, filling your dreams to the brim with fright."
I searched high and low for the perfect tree topper and found nothing! The tree really needed a Oogie Boogie on top. This topper was made by a luck up find of two yellow plastic serving trays and a piece of pizza box. I drew the shape of Oogie on the Pizza Box, cut it out, and colored it in with a black sharpie. I covered the back of one of the trays with white duct tape so you couldn't see thru it. Next, I layered them together using the tray with white back first then I hot glued Oogie to that and glued the other tray on top and let it dry. By putting Oogie in the middle of the two it gave depth and a little shadow to it.
It's the little things that make it work...
To finish off this tree I used a mix of pumpkin ornaments, balls ribbon and picks. The pumpkin ornaments came from Tuesday Morning a few years back and were made by Midwest Creek. The balls I used on this tree are clear craft balls that I covered with balloons.This little trick I picked up from a fellow crafter and blogger named Mark with the Slumbering Alligator. Be sure and check him out and show him some love! I love ribbon and picks. I feel that it is the jewelry of the tree. The more picks the better it looks. I don't think you can ever have to many. Finally, I mixed in some Nightmare Before Christmas action figures I have picked up over the years.
I am Jack, The Pumpkin King...
These life sized Jack and Sally are from Walgreen's and were super affordable, I think they ran $20.00 each. They also have a life size Oogie that I have but didn't use. They hang instead of being stand alone but I made that work. The life size Zero is HUGE, came from Walmart and he also ran around $20.00.
"Nice work, Bone Daddy!"
So there you have it my Nightmare Before Christmas Tree. This tree was alot of fun to do and really pushed my mind with all the little DIY projects. I hope it has inspired you to..."Do a little crafting of your own." Go make something wicked and spooky and share it with me! I really do love to see others do their own take on my projects. So on with you into the night and craft up a spell..