Halloween Dementor Head

Last year for Halloween the children had a Harry Potter themed party, we decorated the house accordingly and added many homemade props, one of which was a dementor hidden in the stairs. If you read my wonderful husband's blog you will have seen the post he wrote recently on the amazing Dementor hands  he made, I had the job of making the head.

We have made papier mache figures and crafts before but nothing quite this large! As you can see from the photograph I have filled a paper cat food bag with newspaper and used egg boxes and a card tube to make the hollows for the eyes and mouth cavity. Sticky tape has been used to obtain the head shape and to keep the details we have added in the correct position. It doesn't matter how much sticky tape you use to get the shape as this will be covered by the next stage.

Completely cover your model with several layers of newspaper and PVA glue, I tend to use my hands here to finish as you can further mould and smooth it to shape better than with a brush. Leave to dry for a while and it could be painted if you prefer.

However, we chose to cover the head with another layer of papier mache, only this time we used black paper. Is it starting to look quite scary yet?

We wanted to give our head a little more texture so that it had the appearance of being older and more decayed and ripped up gauze seemed to be the way to go.

First we mixed a little black poster paint with PVA glue and dipped our gauze into it. Then simply applied small pieces to the head until we achieved the desired effect.

As you can see it looks quite creepy! The children are still wondering whether to add some more spooky effects.... After it has dried you can assemble your dementor, we fixed the head and hands to long sticks and covered these with long black fabric. It really looked very scary hiding in the stairwell.

Hope you have a Spooky Halloween from everyone here.

Quick Paper Garlands

A recent celebration had us reaching for the scrap paper to make some very quick and cheap party decorations. We try to live very thriftily here and spending money on party decorations which could be used for extra presents seems a little strange and the children have a huge amount of fun in the process.

As we didn't have much time and the children are small, we went for the simplest garlands possible. The top one is just a simple bunting garland made with paper, cut, folded and glued over the string or ribbon. Any paper or card can be used and it can be highly personalised to suit the birthday girl or boy, you can use letters or numbers if you choose, my son is hoping for a dinosaur one on his birthday. As you are making this yourself you can choose the exact length and design.

The butterfly one is another very simple one and takes just a few minutes, I have used a shape cutter and a scrap sheet of sticky paper. The butterflies were just stamped out and stuck back to back over some gold string. We made heart ones like these on valentines day, very pretty, my daughter is planning on having these in her room.

The spring blossom garland continues a craft idea we had a few years ago spring blossom craft.

Each flower is made up of three or four cut out tissue paper flower shapes, stacked and twisted together.

These are then threaded onto your chosen string or wool to make the garland.

You can make these garlands out of anything you choose and what's more, it saves you money and it's a wonderful craft idea to get children involved in the decorating.

We have garlands hanging in the house at quite a few times in the year, mostly made by the children who are quite proud of their creations. A couple of recent, very pretty, seasonal ones have been the Autumn leaf garland and the paper snowflake one.

I am hoping to eventually get round to sewing some more permanent garlands in felt and fabric to keep forever, it's just finding the time, it seems to be in short supply here.