Skull in the Garden

Thanks to the ever encroaching hand of Christmas, if you want to get any good stuff for Halloween you have a narrow two week window. For most places this is the first two weekends after Labor Day, after that, all the good stuff's gone and you're left staring at a pair of plastic wings and a half warped Homer Simpson mask.

Point being, if you take this stuff seriously, you should have started haunting around this past Saturday. Which is exactly what I did.

At Michaels I found a very heavy good sized plaster skull and hand. They had a display hinting at using the skull for Dia de los Muertos, but thanks to it's weight I had a different idea what to do with my skull; Garden Decor!

First thing I did was put down a heavy layer of white spray paint, mostly to stop the plaster leaching and to give me a nice flat canvas.

Then I sponged on a slightly yellow-tan color and shadowed some of the lines/eyesockets etc. All in all it took me around 2-3 hours as my husband finished up Bioshock Infinite so we could finally talk about SPOILERS.

To protect the skull from the elements I put on a heavy coat of clear acrylic, which I also doused my little outside gargoyle in as well. I have a gloss coat, but you can get matte or go heavy acrylic coat then matte after, but I sort of liked the skull super shiny.

The hand was a bit easier, much of the same painting lines with a darker brown then sponging with the lighter tan shade.

For a final touch I went digging in my old box of lights and stuff what I got on sale because you never know and stuffed a set of orange lights into the skull's hollow head. These are on a timer, so I don't have to fumble every night flipping them on and off.

Hi new neighbors. We're pretty much the Addam's family without the cool butler or unexplainable wealth.