In Focus

You know those projects you think should be quick, simple, and easy? Yeah, I have yet to have one of those pan out accordingly. 

Getting into the full swing of Halloween, I’ve been making new props and cleaning up others. It is something I thought would take one full weekend of work. I am on weekend three and still not done, but I’m nearly there. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!

This all started with my pumpkin towers. I needed to do something different with them and decided to make an arch. I had enough random PVC pipe in the garage and could find pieces that would work without cutting anything. Making the frame was much easier than I anticipated. The towers, on the other hand, were another story. Some of them came apart easier than others, and scraping off old hot glue didn’t work too well.

After getting the arch configured and the lights wrapped around it, I attached the former trick-or-treat jack-o-lantern buckets to the new frame. For one, I didn’t have enough buckets for the arch, and the buckets were all different shades of orange. I needed a few more and nobody seemed to have any they wanted to part with. 

The pumpkin buckets were faded and I saw an idea that would work for me: cut the eyes, nose, and mouth out of the pumpkins and paint the bucket black. And I painted the inside of the buckets different colors. 

While those dried, I started another project. I attached my foam tombstones to a piece of wood as the base and covered them with spray foam so they would stand on their own and I wouldn’t have to worry about staking them down. This should have been quick and easy...right?

I don’t know how many tombstones I have, easily 20ish. I attached them to the piece of wood with liquid nails and paint stir sticks for some added support. The liquid nails was absolute crap for this job. I ended up using silicone and having to re-glue half of them.

Finally, I was able to work on the spray-foamed bases. I greatly underestimated how much spray foam I would need. So I returned to the store for more spray foam. While there, I encountered a display of pumpkin buckets. I threw in as many that would fit comfortably in my cart, which was about 12, along with 10 more cans of spray foam and some spray paint. 

The previous pumpkin buckets were once again hot glued together and were attached to the columns of the arch. I had to wait for the other 12 to dry, and hoped I had enough to complete the task.

The tombstones were finally finished 22 cans of stuff later, painted and covered in moss. By the way...the moss was its own special disaster. I soaked the moss in a glue and water mixture, hot glued it to the tombstones, and left it to dry. Then, more hot glue was followed by a very heavy layer of sealant spray paint. I’m hoping none of it gets ripped off or ruined by the weather.

One tombstone needs more spray foam—just one more can. And, hopefully, I can finish the arch this weekend. 

Quick, easy projects...right? Here’s to weekend four!