Welcome to my life . . . .

This is a blog about my passion: dollhouses and miniatures. This particular blog was started to follow my miniature dream: to create a Victorian Mansion. But work on my Mansion is slow. Very slow. Sloth slow. Ice Age glacier movement slow. Why? Because I am easily distracted by other personal miniature projects (I have 50+ roomboxes and 15 dollhouses in various stages of incompletion) and because I work for a miniature shop and am often up to my elbows in miniature projects that aren't mine! So, I thought, some artists work in a particular medium (woods, watercolors, clay, oils, etc.), I work in progress . . . .

Friday, November 4, 2016

Pumpkin Crazy (Part 3)

I've had this carve-able pumpkin for over a decade. I cut the design and then it sat for years and years...
Sitting in my basement,waiting for "the day" it would be finished
I knew I wanted a scene inside with a sitting witch waiting for some trick-or-treaters.  But most witches are standing and the inside of the pumpkin was uneven and I was uninspired when thinking about what else would be in the pumpkin with my witch and her candy. So these very minor issues made my project sit unfinished for years upon years.

Then I became inspired when I made a dead plant with a spider hanging off it's branch and some bottles of "spooky" ingredients a witch might have.  I made these for a friend (and made some for myself as well). (Blog post about my Dead Plant with Spider.)  I glued them onto a shelf.
And, wonders of wonders! I found a sitting witch!  My favorite doll dresser (Tish's Versailles Fashion Dolls) has a sitting witch that I loved!  She was perfect!  I ordered her and got working on the floor of the pumpkin...
Bottom filled with Plaster of Paris

In went the Plaster of Paris to even out the floor...It hardened within a few hours as the directions had indicated on the Plaster of Paris box, but it took days upon days to fully dry out as the temperature kept dropping at night below the recommended curing temperature and I did not realize it.  While it was drying out I strung some bats to the ceiling.  The bats are rubber (where to buy the bats) so I could thread a needle with transparent thread and sew the little blood suckers into place:
Bats flying around the place
I stuck an LED light in the pumpkin to light it up.  And eventually the floor did dry enough that I could put down a wood floor.  The wire for the LED runs under the wood floor and out a small hole in the back:
Light makes my cat on a branch design stand out!
I added my shelf, my sitting witch, my awesome wood table I bought almost 10 years ago at the Philly Show, her candies and candles, and an extra chair that I thought the witch would sit on but then realized she'd cover up the incredible "spiderweb" back of the chair so it became an extra chair in the scene.  I put my pumpkins I made previously (although they are still missing their stems) around the exterior of the carved pumpkin scene along with an old tree I had purchased a decade ago.
Love my sitting pretty witch!

But I really wanted my witch to have a carved, lit up pumpkin.  I tried to make one myself (Pumpkin Fiasco) but when that didn't work out the way I thought, I finally found a hollow, carved pumpkin on Etsy (Artistique's Etsy Shop) and decided it was worth the money to get it.  I then added the flickering LED bulb to it to make it light up!  Here's the video of my pumpkin in a pumpkin:
I was so excited to see my plan finished: it was exactly what I wanted!  (Like the music didn't give that away! LOL)  For those that don't watch youtube videos, here are the still photos, but the photos don't have the impressive "wow" effect for the flickering pumpkin or the lights turning off/on with a push of a button; but, at least you can see the final scene put all together:
Pumpkin lit
Room and Pumpkin lit up
Ready for those Trick-or-Treaters
Still loving my bats
Happy Halloween!
A bit delayed in posting this (due to my kids' Halloween festivities and the subsequent clean up from those festivities), but Happy Halloween everyone!

4 comments:

  1. Un diseño muy original en el corte de la calabaza, el resultado final una escena muy bonita.Feliz fin de semana:-)

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  2. That looks awesome!!
    Love the bats

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  3. Hi, Lori - This is a wonderful pumpkin scene! I love the bats, the gorgeous witch, and the pumpkin in a pumpkin. I just showed my grandchildren the video of the pumpkin with the flickering light; they loved it. I had to replay it a few times! That's my grandson's favorite song, so he was singing along - loudly! What fun you provided - thank you for such a creative post.
    Marjorie

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