I wanted to create a fun vintage-inspired piece for this installment of Terrorific Tuesday. A little while back I was in a local gift shop and saw a very similar design on sale for $50 for a small papier mache box. I guess I always think that it would be so much easier to make such a thing, so I did! And I wanted to share it with you. So it is vintage-looking, but I still think it has a current flair…the perfect way to bring your vintage and modern Halloween decorations together. Here’s how I made it:

Supplies:

– Medium papier mache box (6″x6″x3″; mine was purchased at Wal-mart)
– small mini plastic pumpkin (also purchased at Wal-mart)
– Americana craft paint in Bright Orange and Snow White
– Craft Twinkles paint in Orange and Crystal
– Rainbow tape 1/4″ wide tape in black (or thin cut strips of black electrical tape)
– 12×12 sheet of black scrapbook paper with silver star design (purchased at Joann’s)
– 1 small glitter disco ball
– one small piece of shiny white or silver plastic garland (2″ long)
– black Sharpie marker (medium tip)
– 3/8″ wide dowel rod (4″ long)
– black rick rack
– 1 sheet 8.5″ x 11″ white printer paper
– glue gun with glue sticks
– craft glue
– scotch tape
– foam craft brush
– liner brush
– computer with printer
– scissors
– ruler
– pencil

Instructions
1) Paint bottom of box Snow White and lid Bright Orange. Let dry.
2) Cut off 18 strips of Rainbow Tape in 2.75″ lengths. Space out about an inch apart around entire bottom of box.
3) Using foam brush and Craft Twinkles paint in Orange, paint entire top of box. For bottom of box, paint with Craft Twinkles Crystal. Let dry. Apply another coat of Twinkles for extra sparkle if desired.

4. Freehand design for face with pencil on pumpkin. The pencil wipes off easily, so if you make a mistake, you can just wipe off. I based my face design on vintage artwork like these vintage diecut German pumpkin clowns. You can find tons of faces on flickr to base your design on by typing vintage + halloween + pumpkins in the search engine.

5. Outline pencil design with Sharpie marker. Fill insides of eyes and teeth with liner brush and Snow White paint. Let dry.
6. For paper collar, measure our 2 strips of black star paper 2.5″ wide. Accordian fold each strip in approximately 1″ folds. I used skotch tape to connect the star side together at the ends. I then flipped it over, applied a layer of glue and pressed into place to create a seamless looking design.

Once the entire collar was dry, I cinched and taped the middle section together with several pieces of tape (it wasn’t pretty, but it did the trick).

7. Using pencil, find and poke through center of box top for dowel.
8. Place collar direcly in center of hole on top of box and use glue gun to secure into place.
9. Download striped hat image (link can be found here). Cut out and cut into design like a “pac man” type shape.

Form into cone (I actually had to refer here to shape my cone). Use glue gun and secure into place (or skotch tape if you do so fancy).

10. Paint cone with Crystal Twinkles. Let dry.
11. Glue rick rack along bottom of cone. Also take string out of disco ball ornament and glue ball into place at top of cone. Then glue garland securely under bottom of ball. Glue gun onto top of pumpkin head (placing slightly tilted on top).
12. Poke bottom of pumpkin with pencil. Insert dowel inside.

13. Punch dowel through collar and into hole in papier mache box. It will be snug (as shown here).

Voila! Your finished. 🙂 Now display your vintage inspired piece proudly!

Until tomorrow Swellions!