Witch Finger Coffin

In the coffin is a witch's finger.  The only clue to who she was is the picture on the front, courtesy of the Graphics Fairy by the way.

This is one of those projects that's been a decade in the making.  I made this finger ages ago during a Girl Scout outing.  The girls earned their pottery badge at a place that uses a wood fired kiln, which was pretty cool to learn about.

While the girls were making their pottery, I spotted this discarded little log of clay.  I can't take much credit for making this finger, because it was practically a finger before I even picked it up.  I formed the nail bed and added the fingernail and a few knuckle lines, but that's it.  I painted it with acrylics after firing.

All this time I've had this finger, waiting for inspiration to strike with a creative way to display it.

The coffin was an after Halloween clearance purchase.  It wasn't very exciting, so the first step was to fancy it up. I found this video and this video by Sage Reynolds on how to line a box with padded velvet to be very useful.  It's definitely worth a run through even if you do like I did and not pad the liner.  Also at some point you are going to want to paint the inside of the coffin.  I suggest using a color similar to your fabric to hide any tiny gaps or imperfections in the finished lining. My fabric was a clearance priced remnant.

Trace the outside of box on paper and then measure in the thickness of the sides to figure out the inside dimension. From there measure out the height of the sides to create the tabs.  I used paper first, to make a template.  It's easier to make adjustments on paper. Keep in mind you do have to make some allowances for the thickness of your final insert and fabric.  I used a cereal box and a thin fabric.  I scored the cardboard so the sides folded up easily.  

Test your insert, trim as needed.  You want it to fit nicely, but not too tight, you'll need room for the width of the fabric.  At the corners where the sides meet you should have just enough gap to accommodate your fabric.  Again mine was thin, so I trimmed just a hair's breadth.

Cut a piece of fabric the size of the insert and glue it down. I normally only use Elmers school glue for papier mache because it's too watery for much else.  Here it's thin consistency was an asset. I was able to apply a very thin, even coat on the insert and the fabric laid across it perfectly smooth.

Once that's dry you can trim around the insert, make sure you leave enough fabric to fold over the edges. I used double-sided sticky tape to keep the folded edges in place.

My liner ended up fitting perfectly snug, so I didn't glue it down. Also I'm fickle and might want to try my hand at a padded liner at some later date. Repeat the above process to line the lid of the coffin.

The next step is to add some dimension to the top of lid. Below is the template I created. This is actually the fourth one I made before I was happy with it. Again working with paper first is a lot easier to fine tune your template.

The red line "B" is the outline of my coffin.  It's important that it's outlined exactly the way it will sit on the top of the coffin. Until I started this process I would've sworn the coffin was symmetrical.  It's not even close.  

The inside line labeled "A" is 3/8 inch in from the red line. 

The outside line "C" is 1/8 inch from the red line. 

The little red lines "D" are drawn perpendicular to lines "B" from the corners. I've denoted the right angles in blue.  

The little black lines "E" are drawn from the corners of line "A" to the points where lines "D" intersect lines "C".  

Cut along lines "C" and "E".  

When you cut out the final piece on cardboard also score along lines "A".  

I hope this all makes sense.     

Tape the corners together and try the template on for size. After I knew these were the exact measurements for the shape I wanted, I went through the whole process on a piece of cardboard instead of tracing the template for a more precise fit.  

To make it a little sturdier I stacked and glued craft sticks, broken to fit down the center underneath. I put glue around the edges and used tape to keep it in place.  After it dries you can papier mache over it.  I chose texture past under a layer of lace, which I scored on my last thrift store excursion.  I may have gone a bit overboard on the decorations, but I stand by creating a raised lid.  It's a nice addition to an otherwise plain cheap coffin.  

The original plan was to do raised scrolls in texture paste, somehow that ended up being random zipper swirls. I daubed a thin texture paste in between the zippers to make the plain cardboard more interesting.  Then I slapped on two coats of black paint, wiping it off the zipper teeth so the metal shines through.  I was going to highlight the different textures, but I thought it would look too busy.  They don't show as well in the pictures, but in person the textures speak for themselves.    

We have a charity thrift store in town where you pay by the pound.  Basically all the stuff that doesn't sell at their main outlets goes there.  All the clothes are in these huge bins that you have to shift through.  I went there years ago with a friend looking for clothing with interesting zippers/buttons. One of the workers kindly pointed out that we were sifting through bins that had been picked over for awhile and pointed where the "newer" stuff was.  Since we were going to destroy anything we bought, it was actually nice to know that we were sifting through the rejects of the rejects.  I didn't spend much and I still haven't used all the items I salvaged.  If you have anything like that in your area I'd check it out.

Frozen Fingers

I know yesterday was supposed to be the last day of Creepmas, but I'm not ready for that. I still have creepy stuff to get done and life has been getting in the way. So I'll be here, all month, being creepy. Ok fine all year and it has nothing to do with Creepmas, I'm just weird.

But I do have one more recipe after this that you aren't going to want to miss. I finally figured out what flavor Krampus is, so be sure to check back in a few days.

If you want to make fingers that look like these you only need to know two things:

1) I used Wilton pretzel molds, the zombie, the witch and the skeleton.
2) To get the coloring you see, I used a ratio of one blue candy melt to 1/4oz white chocolate for the darker details and one blue candy melt to 1.5oz white chocolate for the lighter color.

You can use any truffle or cake pop recipe to fill them.  You could even use a pretzel rod, you know what the molds were actually made for.  But I figured I'd used Creepmas as an excuse to try another cranberry truffle recipe.  Everyone loved the zombie bites, a few years back, but I wanted to try something new.

I used this recipe for Cranberry White Chocolate Truffles.

The following is my slightly modified version.  I only made half the recipe.  I microwave my chocolate.  And I don't like the way the ingredients are listed in the original recipe.  You only use part of the white chocolate and dried cranberries in the truffle mixture and the rest is to coat and garnish.  I like it when recipes make it obvious in the ingredients list that they will be used in separate quantities.  Otherwise if you're like me, even if you've read through the darn thing twice, you just dump it all in and then are like, "What? I was supposed to safe some of that for later? Oops."

They do link to some pretty sound advice on tempering chocolate if you'd like to learn about that. Because I'm adding candy melts to the white chocolate and candy melts are infused with voodoo magic, tempering isn't all that important here.

The amount of chocolate & melts listed to coat the molds is approximate. I coated four molds and ended up only filling three and they were all different sizes so I'm giving you my best educated guess.


3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
5 oz white chocolate, chopped*
4 teaspoons canned whole-berry cranberry sauce**

1 tablespoon finely chopped sweetened dried cranberries (each piece should be approximately 1/8 to 1/4 inch)

5 blue candy melts

5oz white chocolate***

*Bakers makes a nice white chocolate with real cocoa butter.  It comes in 4oz boxes scored into 1/4oz blocks.  I'm lazy. I don't bother chopping it I just break it along the score lines and then break each 1/4oz in half.

**I make my own sauce and mince any large berry chunks, recipe below.  I think you could also substitute just about any fruit preserves.  

*** White chocolate and even white candy melts have a slight yellow hue, if you don't want the blue melts to take on a greenish tone use a bright white candy melt.  

Pour cream over 5oz of white chocolate in microwave safe bowl.  Microwave for 1 minute at 50% power. Let stand 1 minute and then stir very gently until smooth. Stir in the cranberry sauce and dried cranberries. Cool to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap, then refrigerate until firm enough to roll, preferably overnight.

First make fingernail/accent color. Place 2 blue candy melts with a half ounce of white chocolate in a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave for 30-40 seconds at 50% power, stir until melted.  If it's still not melted add another 20 seconds at 50%.  I use a small silicone spoonula, because not only does it stir but it can also scrape the sides of the bowl. 

Coat fingernail areas, for the bone fingers smear some along the sides/ridges.  You can use your finger to paint the molds, don't worry about perfection, nobody cares.  Pop molds in the refrigerator.

Add 1 candy melt and 1.5oz of white chocolate to your bowl. It doesn't matter if there is still a little finger nail color left, just scrape the sides so it's mostly sitting at the bottom.  Microwave for 1 minute at 50%.  Stir until smooth and melted.  Check to make sure it's not too hot by dripping a bit on your inside wrist. If you can feel the heat it's still too warm, if not it's just right. (Yep, just like a baby bottle.) Now spoon a little into your mold and gently push it around until the whole surface is coated.  You only need a thin coat.

If you run out add another candy melt and 1.5oz of chocolate and repeat the process. I had enough truffle mixture to fill three molds, but they varied a great deal in size.  After all the molds are coated put them in fridge to chill.


Gently press tiny spoonfuls of the truffle mixture along the cavities of the molds. Since these are meant to be used with pretzels you have to leave a little gap so when you top it off you get a nice seal.  If it gets sticky to work with you can put a little confectioner's sugar on your hands or re-chill the mixture.  I like to place plastic wrap over the top and gently press the mixture into the mold. Chill again after filling. My filling was pretty sticky so I waited until it was cold enough to peel back the plastic wrap.



Let them set at room temperature while you mix up some more chocolate.  Again you can keep adding to the same bowl.  As long as you don't overheat it, the old should easily incorporate with the new.  Make sure you always use 50% power.

Once your chocolate is done, it's time to top off your fingers.  The important part is getting coverage all the way to the edges, you want chocolate touching chocolate all the way around to create a seal.  Don't worry if it's not perfectly smooth, seriously nobody cares.  If you have to be all Martha Stewart, after it sets you can run a hot knife over it.  Some thing goes for if you have any rough edges after you pop them out.  Put a butter knife in a hot cup of water, dry it off, gently press it along the edge and it will melt any rough edges.  Don't over do it, you don't want to melt all the way through to the filling.  Reheat your knife as needed, don't forget to wipe it dry before pressing it against the chocolate.  

To pop them out easily stick them in the freezer for a few minutes. If they don't pop right out, they aren't cold enough.

My cranberry sauce is a combination of this Cranberry & Dried Cherry sauce and this Triple-Cranberry one.

1 cup frozen cranberry juice cocktail (I prefer just cranberries juice, no apple juice or other juices added)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 12oz package fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed, drained
1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped
3 tablespoons orange marmalade
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half

Combine cranberry juice concentrate, cinnamon stick and sugar in medium saucepan.  Bring to boil over high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.  Add fresh cranberries and dried cherries and cook until fresh berries begin to pop, stirring often, about 7 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in orange marmalade, orange juice and orange peel.  Cool completely, remove cinnamon stick pieces.  Cover and chill.  Can be made 3 days ahead, keep refrigerated or freeze.  Makes about 2.5 cups. 

Halloween Flamingos

My original vision was two dozen flamingos strewn across the front yard in various stages of demise. Decapitated, gut shot, rotting, tortured plastic flesh, pink flamingo carnage as far as the eye could see with a few flamingo cenobites thrown in to instill order. 

But I felt the kids were too young to see mommy hacking away at little pink bodies and I didn’t know how well those little plastic bodies would respond to the kind of treatment I had in mind. Instead I purchased only a half dozen flamingos from eBay, for a very reasonable price, if you don’t mind not having authentic Featherstone’s and outfitted them with very tame Halloween costumes that the kids came up with based on their interests at the time.

My only complaint is the legs don’t stay put. I don't know if this is just a problem with the knock-offs, I'm not really a flamingo connoisseur. The wire legs were always popping out of the slots molded into the plastic. So I ended up gluing mine in, but then they take more space to store. One of them had a defect, we’ll talk about him later. 

I had two criteria for the costumes. One was to use stuff on hand and the other was to use materials that would hold up to the cold and the rain.

I'll explain the least obvious accessories like Indiana Jones’ jacket, which is made from a child’s pirate costume boot cover.  

His lasso is a rope, the handle is what I call a modified noose, but I’m sure there is real name for it. 

My dad passed on a wealth of knowledge to me, such as don’t get any jailhouse tattoos and don’t steal anything that’s not worth going to prison for. I’m sensing a pattern here. He also taught me how to make a noose.  No context, just an out of the blue, come here kid and let me show you something father and daughter bonding moment. It's because of my warped childhood that I’m always surprised at how many people don’t know how to make a noose, so let me enlighten you if you don't already know. 

It’s really very easy and handy for decorating. No, not for Better Homes and Gardens, but definitely for stringing up a skeleton or two for Halloween. Never, never ever, ever ever, (Is that Taylor Swift singing in the background?), never, ever, never put a noose around any living creature. Not for just a second, not to be funny, not because your inner child wants to clean the gene pool. It’s not cool.

That being said, here’s a video that shows you just how easy it is. I’ve heard it’s illegal to make a noose, that a hangman’s noose has 13 coils, that 13 is the requisite number to make it big enough to snap a neck after a short drop with a sudden stop, and that the number of coils is why 13 has been deemed an unlucky number (Totally unfounded, nasty rumor, 13 is an awesome number once you get to know it. Now 4 on the other hand seems a little shifty. You don’t hear much about 4, kind of makes you wonder what it’s up too, right?). I have not seen anything factual to give credence to any of those statements, but I think thirteen loops looks good and for macabre decorating is definitely in the spirit of things.

This faux bullwhip is similar to the hangman's noose except just make one loop, wrap it, feed the end of the wrap through the loop and then pull the long end of the rope so the loop pulls tight. No, I don’t actually recommend using a fuchsia jump rope, but you get the idea.

Moving on, the witch's stringy hair is plastic Halloween garland. Her cape or shawl is made out of black pet screen. Pet screen also works for toddlers that like to press up against screen doors. 

Most of the other accessories are made out of craft foam sheets. Here are instructions to make an easy tutu like the ballerina has.  My favorite is the mummy and he's just wrapped in cheesecloth.  I think an army of mummy flamingos would look awesome.

The ghost was the one with the bum leg hole. After numerous fixes I gave up and he floated from a tree for a while and then he was abducted by aliens and this happened.

 

The alien flamingo's eyes are made out of the round plastic toy capsules that come out of quarter machines.  I boiled two halves in water until they were soft, and then wrapped a rubber band around the middle to squeeze them into an oblong shape. Careful they will be hot, so use tongs or thick gloves to hold onto it while wrapping.  Let them cool, and spray paint the inside black.  The edges will need to be trimmed for them to lay against the face.  Trim a little at a time until you get a good fit and then hot glue them on. 

His spaceship is nothing fancy. It's a circle of foam I had, with some cardboard, covered in tinfoil with clear marbles and battery operated micro mini lights glued along the outside edge, covered in plastic wrap for waterproofing. It looks pretty good for a 15 minute project with the lights twinkling and reflecting off the wrap, marbles and tinfoil.

Best part, nobody questions why he doesn't have any legs. 

By the way if you're thinking, "But wait tinfoil and aliens don't mix.", you should probably check out this site, the old tinfoil hat isn't nearly as effective as you may have been led to believe.

Next step is to make papier mache flamingo clones, then I can do all sorts of dastardly things to them.

This has nothing to do with Halloween, more to do with Home Owner Associations and is possibly the best lawn flamingo story ever written.  Most importantly it makes me chuckle, enjoy A Flock of Lawn Flamingos by Pat Murphy.