Happy Halloween

That says it all today. I have rounded up the trolls and put them in their cage. They tend to get really rowdy on Halloween. The eat every piece of wood in site.....Oops. I think I made a terrible mistake. The cage is partially made of, you guessed it, WOOD!!!

I am not at all sure that they like candy corn. I can only hope.

My friend George has been around for Halloween for many years. He doesn't eat at all. He just guards all of the mini buildings that I have made over the years and holds off the dollhouse trolls. Good old George!

I will give you a quick tutorial today. This is a class that I taught the

Wednesday Witches last Halloween. All of the things that I made it from are either cheap or free. The skeleton came in a garland from Wal-Mart. The little fence, Spanish moss and pumpkins came from the craft department there. The plot of land came out of an aerosol can from there and the tree came out of my back yard.

We started from the bottom up. I actually did the basic ground and tree before the witches gathered.

The land is made of "Great Stuff" insulating foam sealant. It's the "big gap filler" kind. You will find it in hardware along with paints and Spackle. It is really great stuff. You have to be careful with it. It is really sticky and they warn you to wear gloves and protective eye wear. I did just fine with garden gloves and my usual glasses. I took it out on the back patio and laid out some wax paper. Then I shook the can and squirted out a pile of the stuff for each plot of land. The stuff grows, so you have to kind of experiment with how much and what shape you want.

You have to let it dry well. If I do it again I think I will plan on overnight. This, I let dry for about 4 hours. Anyway, when you get it the shape that you want it, take a branch and poke it in the foam where you want the tree. I propped them up with various devices shoved under the branches and not touching the foam. This stuff will stick to anything so don't get anything too close to it.

After it dries thoroughly, the tree will stand up by itself. Then I sprayed the ground with basic brown paint. I had the witches put on other colors of brown and black to give more reality to the ground.

Then they decided where they wanted the fence and the skeleton to be in the scene. The fence is easy. It comes in long strips and you just cut of as many pickets as you need. You can push things down into the foam just like you can with Styrofoam. They made indentations, put in some white glue and then stuck the fences in place. They glued on the greenery here and there. Then they put a few little pumpkins, etc. around.

The fun part was placing the skeletons. Mine is fairly boring. One of the witches had her skeleton climbing the tree and another had hers hanging in a noose.

I think that the most valuable part of this whole thing is the Great Stuff. The possibilities are endless. It would be great for landscaping in lots of different situations. All we have to do is learn to control it. It's kind of like the monster that ate Cleveland when it starts growing! Did I mention that you can carve it with a steak knife if it gets out of control?

I will be back at the basket shop tomorrow.

See you then.