" Sally's Nightshade Garden"
Little Shop Of Horror vibes...
Whats Up Flockers! Back in July a friend sent me a link to see the sneak peek of Targets Hide and Eek for this year and I saw the Ghoulish Gardens decorations and knew they would have to be worked into this year's Halloween in the Kingdom somehow. They most defiantly reminded me of Little Shop of Horrors but that wasn't a Tim Burton Film and he was the subject of this years theme. There were already plans in the works for a garden theme for Sally in the foyer so I could fit these in perfect. Now for the real work. The items would not be available for even a pre-order until Aug 22nd, so I would need to sit and wait patiently for the time to come to try and order online as soon as it went live on the site. Here I am August 22nd 12:00am on the site ready to add items to my cart, but nope not live yet. Fine I'm off the next day I will stay up later and try again. Now 1:30am and still not posted yet, check again at 2:30am, you guessed it still not there. I finally pass out at about 3:00am after checking again. I woke up at about 8:30 and go straight to the site and all items have sold out and not available for in-store pick-up. What am I to do other than get dressed and head to Target, hoping that maybe by some chance they also put the items out. To my surprise I get there and I see 3 pieces left on the shelf, I grab them up and check out and head to the next Target where I find one more piece. I spoke with a lady who works in the Halloween section and she said people were waiting for her to bring them out from the back when she got to work. She also informed me she probably had others in the back and just wouldn't be able to get to them that day. I took home my items and would try again for the others another day. I mad several trips to Target that week and ended up getting the entire set of plants.
A Garland of eye popping Poppies...
The garland is made from a lot of stuff I had and Some great clearance deals that I also picked up at #Target. Target has brand called Opalhouse that I am in love with. It's a mix of urban, mid-century and a little boho. Check it out on your next trip! The garland started off as a spring garland made by #opalhouse that kinda had an island/summer vibe to it. It Had these great pink unopened flowers that kinda looked like they could live in the same universe a the man eating plants. Now that I had something to use as a base it just needed to be fuller and thicker. To do this i used some artificial Spanish Moss and misted it with gold spray paint to give a lil shine. I wove it into existing greenery to hold it in place. Once the Spanish Moss was in place he needed some lights. I had a box of candy corn lights that could be mixed in and give off a nice glow.
Diy Eye Popping Poppies..
The poppies are made from Poppies, a bag of Moss, and Eye Ball Ping-pong Balls all from #DollarTree. For this project you will need to cut the Ping Pong Balls in half, I used an exacto knife. Just be careful not to cut your hand open. Now that you have safely cut your eyes in half you can start to assemble the poppies. Put a little hot glue around the edge of your eye ball and add on the green moss. Now that you have done that to all of your eyes you can pick up a flower and right in the middle on top of the bud area of the flower add a tone of hot glue and put it inside the open back of the eye ball and hold for a few mins so it sets. For the garland I cut them into steams but you will also see where I left them in a bundle to put inside a DIY skull planter. I will add a picture of the planter here also.
DIY Fairy Skeletons...
Another Dollar Tree DIY. Dollar Tree had a garland made from string and five small plastic skeletons, and they also had Clip on bats, I assume for costumes or wreaths. For this project you will just need to remove the string from the skeletons and lay them on something so you can spray paint them. I choose gold but you can do any color that you want. For the wings you just need need to pull the wings off of the body of the bat and hot glue them to the back of the skeleton. If you cant find Bats you can also use fake butterflies and do them the same way.
DIY Skull Planters...
The Skull planters are maybe the easiest DIY of this post. I got three skulls, cut a hole on the top of the head with that scary exacto knife, and filled them with spray foam. Pro-Tip, don't fill the skull all the way to the top because the foam will expand as it dries. I would let the foam dry over night. Once the foam has dried take a knife and cut off any that flows over the top. Now for mine I sprayed them gold but you can leave as is or spray another color. While I was spraying the skulls I also sprayed this great Medusa head I found at #Ross.
For the flowers I chose three different flowers from Dollar Tree that would work with my colors. I got Purple Sunflowers, Red Ranunculus and Purple Poppies. I had in mind to do other types of flowers to go with the man eating theme. So I also grabbed some fake Vampire teeth, miniature skulls, and more eye balls. I will give ya the how to on the Skull Flowers and Blood Suckers below. To feel in the rest of the area of the Skulls I just used some greenery I already had around the Kingdom..
Skull Flowers...
Cut all your skulls in to halves, these are soft enough you can cut them with a pair of scissors. Spray to the color of your choice and hot glue to the center of the flower.
Blood Suckers...
This one is a little more involved. You will need to take your Ranunculus apart. Remove the flower from the stem, then remove the back of the flower, now remove the petals. Between each layer of the petals there should be a small plastic divider that helps to give it shape these will be used in a different place when you put your flower back together. You should end up with a bud of sorts that was in the middle of the flower this will be made from the same thing as the plastic dividers. Push your plastic dividers back on to the bud followed by your petals and the back of the flower. once you have put the flower back together you can put the stem back in. I would suggest adding a little hot glue to keep the flower on the stem.
Take a set of your Vampire Teeth and cut them right behind the fang. You want to remove the plastic that keeps them joined together. Add a tone of hot glue around the bud area of the flower and stick your teeth on to kinda make it look like the bud is in his mouth.
Be careful what you smell in this garden...
Sally's Nightshade Garden was a fun project to do. It was nice to mix some great Store bought items with some pretty easy DIY things. I hope this has inspired you to go and craft a frightfully awesome garden of your own. Create some greatness and share it with me!