Thursday, October 30, 2014

Part 2 of Witching Hour

After completing my witch's hat I experienced some Spontaneous Craziness yet again. I decided that a hat was not enough to complete my look. In fact, it wasn't even close to enough. My costume was missing two very essential things. However, I had depleted my resources for my costume. That meant I had to get really creative. Ah, Creativity, thou shall save you in a pinch!

Now, I had my eyes open wide searching everywhere and everything for anything that would prove to be useful in this endeavor.  As I was walking my son to school, I had a AH-HA moment when I laid eyes on a stick. Yes a stick, ladies and gentlemen! The perfect stick, I might add. The gears in my head started to click into motion as it mentally went through all of my Halloween Pins before I got an excited cackle that it had found something suitable.

A wand that took me approximately ten minutes to make. So easy and so cute. I had all I needed for it. It cost me nothing but the gas to get back home so I could revel in the spontaneous-ness (even though that is not a real word, it works). 

What you will need:
  1. Stick of your choice
  2. Hot Glue Gun
  3. Paint Brush
  4. Paint (I chose a cherry brown)
  5.  Ribbon, Optional
The stick I used had a lot of nobs on it which worked great. I used the hot glue to make the nobs more pronounced and all the way around the stick. Think Dumbledore's Elder Wand for all of you Harry Potter fans. I did this all the way down the wand. Towards the end where I wanted the handle I left enough space for between the nobs to fit my hand. Once the glue was dry, I started painting it. I had to make sure that I got all the nook and crannies of the glue painted too.

Since I was really impatient and excited to get it finished I sat it out in the sun to dry when I was done painting it. It dried in minutes. Now, the next part is optional. I used the ribbon that I had left over from my hat and wrapped it around the handle of the wand. When I glued that down, I decided that it wasn't enough. It needed a little something more. Something more feminine. Just because I was going to be a witch didn't mean I couldn't be cute too.

So I tied and glued down the most perfect bow ever! Now it was ready to start casting spells and charms.


The last item on my Spontaneous Craziness list was a broom. I mean really, what witch is without out her broom? I suggest for this project to go walk along a river, lake, or something of the like. Enjoy the fresh air and just relax. Take your spouse or friend with you. You will need the extra hands. Take a look at what is around you. You will find everything that you will need. I sure did. I found two large branches that would be perfect for the broom handle. I only had to decide which one to use. In the brush along the trail, I found a ton of dried grass or straw. I picked that on the way back. Be careful though, it was very brittle.

Before I even got home I knew what branch I was going to use. I slowly began to pick off the rough bark. I didn't want that to get caught and snag my dress. When that was done my fiance used a damp cloth to sand down the branch. I didn't have any fine sand paper and we thought it would look even better if we didn't loose the dark brown coloring of the wood. We did use a little sand paper to sand off the ends though. The ends of the branch were really rough and the cloth wouldn't work on that part.

For the next step, I thought it would be awesome to make a saddle for it. The branch had a perfect spot to sit upon. I used some of the extra felt from when I made the hat. Cut a rectangle to fit the area. Hot glued some yarn to the back side of the fabric. Then tied it onto the broom.



I saved the straw for last because I didn't want it to all break apart while I was doing everything else. I used four zip-ties. I only have small ones so I had to connect two to make one long one in order to make them fit around the straw and broom handle. This part is messy, so beware. I got the zip-ties as tight as I could without breaking the straw too much. I was going to use more of the felt for this part, but I didn't lay right so instead I used some more black yarn to wrap around the straw and to hide the zip-ties.  I also used some black ribbon to tie around the straw on top of the yarn to keep with the bow theme.



Now my costume is finally complete. I think....

























I also made a a graveyard this year. I had bought some tombstones from the dollar store earlier in the month and remade them. I spray painted them black. Then hand painted the details with a silver paint to make it stand out. I also mod-podged them in hopes to keep the water and dew out of the Styrofoam so they they would last longer. So far so good.

Everything was bought at the dollar store or I already had.