Making Sally (Nightmare Before Christmas) Part 2 – The Head

Sally - made from a foam head and craft paints.

Sally – made from a foam head and craft paints.

This is part 2 of a series of tutorials on how to make Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. The first tutorial was on how to make her body and frame.

To make Sally’s head you’ll need:

1 Styrofoam Head
Craft paints (use outdoor acrylics if placing prop outside) aqua blue, grey, red, black, white
Paint brushes
Foam brush
Black jewelry cord (optional)
Adhesive (make sure you have a brand compatible with foam)
Dollar Store Fake eyelashes
Pencil
Drawing of Sally or image of Sally

Directions:
1) Mix blue and grey paint until you reach the desired skin tone for Sally. In the movie, some images appear to show her skin as blue, in other parts, she appears to be grey. It’s your choice.
2) With the foam brush, paint the entire foam head with your blue-grey mixture, let dry.
3) After studying how Sally is drawn, use a pencil to outline the larger eyes, eyeshadow, lips, and stitches.
4) Paint your outlines, let dry.
5) Apply waterproof, clear-drying glue to the eyelashes and place along the eye shadow line. Add optional extra large lashes by cutting small pieces of black cord and rolling the pieces on a pencil and then attaching them to the lash bed.
6) Once eyelashes are dry, take black paint and heighten the full-lash look by brushing on (as if using a mascara brush) the black paint upward, thickening the lashes. Continue reading →

Zombie Love – Dolls Transformed

Baby dolls "transformed" into the walking dead. Image copyrighted, all rights reserved, Debbie Morrow

Baby dolls “transformed” into the walking dead. Image copyrighted, all rights reserved, Debbie Morrow

Here are my newest creations. Believe it or not, I had a nightmare the first night I started making these.

I’m not sure if I should stick them slightly into the ground or let them just be the walking dead. What do you think?

Repulsive Recipes for Halloween

There's always room for Jello! Image of Jello worms courtesy of thecraftpatch.blogspot.com

There’s always room for Jello! Image of Jello worms courtesy of thecraftpatch.blogspot.com Recipe link below.

Half the fun on Halloween is sampling the novel treats that people bring to a party. The Jello Worms, The Mayor Cupcake from the Nightmare Before Christmas, witch hats, and the list goes on. Yet, the gruesome ones can be the most exhilarating. They push you to see if you have the guts to eat something beyond the regular aesthetics. Almost like a Fear Factor episode.

Here are some ideas for gruesome culinary creations that will help your friends squirm at your next party:

Baby Doo Doo Poop Balls or Shapes

Baby Doo Doo Image and recipe courtesy of Debbie Morrow. All Rights Reserved.

Baby Doo Doo Brownie Balls:

You’ll need:

1 Brownie Mix

1 Bag of Candy Corn

1) Make the brownies following the package directions, including the baking instructions. Do not over bake. Once brownies are cool enough to touch, grab about a tablespoon of brownie in your hand and roll it into a ball or shape into a turd. Push one or two candy corn into the ball, allowing them to slightly protrude.

Band-Aids have never been tastier! Image courtesy of Noblepig.com and recipe by Debbie Morrow.

Band-Aids have never been tastier! Image courtesy of Noblepig.com and recipe by Debbie Morrow.

 

Bloody Band-Aids

You’ll need:

Graham Crackers

White Frosting

Red Jam or Jelly

Directions: Break the crackers up into sections (half a square per band-aid) and place white in middle to represent the gauze and a dot of jam on top. Don’t forget to display your crackers with a few band-aid wrappers on the plate.

Still not grossed out? Try other stomach-turning recipes here:

Instructables – Scary Halloween Food

Cake Litter Cake

Chocolate Tarantulas

If you have any questions on some of the frugal gals recipes or want to share your scary delight, please feel free to reach out to me. Thanks!

Halloween Invitations to Die For

My Halloween Invite for 2013.

My Halloween Invite for 2013. Contact and location information was removed for privacy. TO VIEW IMAGE WITHOUT DISTORTION, PLEASE READ ON LAPTOP, PAD, OR DESKTOP.

Here is my latest Halloween invite for 2013. I absolutely love fortune teller themed everything, so here’s my tutorial:

Find a high definition(HD) image of a Ouija board – like this one or this one from ZombiePumpkins.com forum. Even a newbie can use Photoshop Elements/Paint/Word for this job. Don’t have Photoshop Elements? You can download a 30-day trial. Although you can do it entirely in Photoshop(or really in Paint), I’ll be speaking to those who aren’t Photoshop savvy and we’ll be using both.

Steps for Invites Continue reading →

Halloween Planners…Start Your Engines!

The clock is ticking quickly toward Halloween. Make it quick Cinderella image courtesy of flickr.com.12215612@N06/2877261320.

The clock is ticking quickly toward Halloween. Make it quick Cinderella image courtesy of flickr.com.12215612@N06/2877261320.

From the date of this post, there are only 68 days until Halloween. That may seem like a lot of time. But for prop makers, crafters and party hosts, the timeline is even shorter.

Party hosts usually place their event the weekend before and crafters and yard haunters like to show off their efforts a least a month prior to the big day. Anything shorter would seem pale in comparison for all the effort put into their late-night prop making.

The flurry of activities between networking with other crafters can be exhilarating. From blogs, Pinterest, websites and forums, ideas begin to take form. Continue reading →

Summer Prop Planning has Begun!

Jack and Zero need some prop friends. Which ones would you choose? Image courtesy of Marciniak Photography.

Jack and Zero need some prop friends. Which ones would you choose? Image courtesy of Marciniak Photography.

The beginning of summer is the opportune time to plan prop projects for Halloween. It gives a haunter the time and space to be more creative and allows for mishaps to be corrected. It allows for any reconstructions or cosmetic work to be completed in leisure – rather than a few panicked weeks.

Since I made Jack Skellington and his dog Zero last year, I’ve been contemplating what other characters to add. Jack’s girlfriend Sally, is at the top on my list. But how I will make her, is still up in the air.

The Easiest: Continue reading →

Repurpose Holiday Decorations

From Halloween to Christmas

I often make at least one new large Halloween prop a year. But there is often a sadness that occurs when I place my artistic endeavors in storage; especially since many times it had taken weeks to create.

This was the case a few years ago with my 16 foot pirate ship made from wood pallets. The week after Halloween passed I didn’t have the heart to tear it down.  So I turned it into a Santa ship and took Davy Jones away. I filled the ship with an enormous bag of toys with Santa at the wheel.

Seeing Props in a Different Light Continue reading →

Halloween Bash 2012 – A Success

Photos of the Night

For all the friends and family that have gathered during my Halloween Bash, these photos are for you – a sampling of the night.

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If anyone needs a quick tutorial on how to make Jessie from the movie Toy story, please shoot me a message. My husband (Woody and I won “Best Couple”).  My costume cost less than 20 dollars to make and only about 2.5 hours of effort.

The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t

The Calm Before the Storm

All hell broke loose the week before Halloween, which has made me get behind in my posts. Since my house was in the path of Sandy, I had to decide whether or not I would take down my 50+ props in the yard.

I decided I didn’t want to add to the flying debris and took all of them down. It took just over 2.5 hours to get them down and put away safely.

After the storm had passed, there were only 3 days left until Halloween. Although I was grateful we did not get the devastation other people experienced, I was a little sadden by the fact my yard was empty of Halloween glee.

An Effort Worth Taking

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I chose to put them back up, which was no small order. It took working straight through (without any breaks) just shy of 8 hours to bring back the Halloween spirit.

When the Halloweeners (from the book of Debisms) began to trickle down the street, I saw faces of delight and fear. That in itself was worth all the effort.

Sandy may have cancelled their Halloween Parade, but she wasn’t going to stop this gal from spreading the magic of Halloween.

My First Homemade Chocolates

My first attempt at making chocolates will be used for two cauldron cakes at the Halloween Bash. Photo courtesy of Debbie Morrow.

I’ve always been curious on how hard it would be to make those homemade chocolates. Since I decided to make 2 cauldron cakes for my upcoming Halloween Bash, I needed some body parts and gruesome edibles to hang out of the pot.

Since Gummi Bears are pretty tasteless, I chose to try my hand at candy making. They are not perfect, but sticking out of a cauldron surrounded by other scary edibles, I think they’ll work.

Looking for simple directions for chocolates? Sugarcraft has step-by-step instructions that even newbies can follow.