Zombie Pumpkin - Part Six, The Final Touch

The first thing to do to finish this off was the lighting.  For this project I used Micro LED Christmas lights, similar to these.  There are 15 LED’s on the strand, it only uses 2 AA’s so the battery pack is nice and small and there is a twinkle setting. I used a low temp glue gun to secure them inside the top of the pumpkin and run the cord down the side where they would be hidden behind the tree.  I notched a trench into the side of the Styrofoam base for the cord to run through and cut out a small hole in the bottom of the pumpkin to access the batteries. 

 

One of the limited pictures I managed to take.

Once the lighting was done I did as much assembly as I could with the base outside of the pumpkin. I laid out the headstones and glued most of them in place, the couple of taller pieces had to be added afterwards. I added a gravel path or the start of a gravel path since the rest of the cemetery has become overgrown. To make gravel I took a hammer to a piece of our stone mulch, it’s called Shimmering Smoke, so it has a little sparkle. Then I covered the Styrofoam using pieces of sheet moss that had some nice autumn colors.

 

Testing to make sure the fence will fit. 

The hardest part was finagling the tree and the base into the pumpkin at the same time. There wasn’t enough room to put one or the other in first and then add the second. I angled them in at the same time and once they were both in the pumpkin there was some room to adjust. I won’t lie, it wasn’t easy, but once they were inside the base fit nice and snug, and the tree top curved with the top of the pumpkin creating a nice branching overhang and the tension from the copper wire keeps it firmly in place. 

I moved the moss around the roots of the tree and glued on the remaining headstones.  The zombies had nice pointy feet, so I just covered them in glue and poked them through the moss into the Styrofoam.  Once all the miscellaneous body parts were glued down, I slid the sides of the fence in. Like the tree and the base, the fence isn't glued in but again with all the wire tension it stays firmly in place.  I can turn the whole pumpkin upside down and nothing moves. 

 

The final touch was to add a bit of antique brass chain around the gate and the bride’s severed hand trying to crawl its way out. 

  

A picture doesn’t really do it justice, so here’s a little video.