Shitty Rat (2012)

For Halloween 2012 I arranged a small carving party. With that there were colored pancakes, ghost chips, spooky soda flavours (ear grease; toe cheese, elf's blood etc.)
I also did some table decorations like the paper mache pumpkin from a previous post.
But also this rat made from paper mache:

Finished rat; side view

Finished rat; front view

It's a rat with a bottle inside of him. The cap of the bottle holds a fake cork which can be screwed off.

It was made using the basics of the Dungeon Rats from Stolloween.

Basically adding carton frames to a bottle and adding strips of newspaper on it.

The painting was done using the dry paint technique often used; apply a base color and add some dabbed off paint for shadows etc.

I added some raisins inside as if it were rat droppings.

For some strange reason no one wanted raisins on their pancakes that evening.

Witch Cabinet (2012)

It was my friend her birthday again. Remember the miniature torture devices I made? It was for the same person. This time I wanted to make another piece for her dollhouse: A witches cabinet. But not an ordinary one: pull the book and it's actually a door that opens.

A pen next to it to show the actual size

Unfortunately my camera crashed with Halloween and I didn't transfer all my pictures to my computer, only 3 of them which I used in my PDF portfolio survived.

It's a random cabinet. All 3 drawers can be taken out. The desk lid can be pulled down revealing the inside.

Here are 2 more drawers which can also be taken out.

I filled the cabinet mostly with books, since that's what most witches need.

Most books are made from 1 block of MDF, I've sawn some pieces out making it look like a stack of single books.
A few books are inspired with the things my friend likes like: WWE, Xena: Warrior Princess, Dark Willow, and Repo! The Genetic Opera (the actual lever book, because it's a DVD, not a book). 

All are hand painted by myself.

A miniature candle on the Book of Shadow (Charmed). 

The original book with my painted miniature.
The cast shadow is so big because it's the whole stack of books
instead of just that one book.

I also put a little book stand in it, who is Hoggle from labyrinth.
There's also a little candle, made from real candle wax on a wire of sewing thread, a skull made of clay, a glass marble, a little athame (ceremonial dagger) an ink pot (clay) with a quill; which was made from the tip of a normal bird feather and to complete the witches collection a few spells from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a Rune card and the Wicca calendar.

Below there's a nice close up to show a bunch of the named items.

The writing desk useful for every incarnation you wish to write about.

The handles you see on the drawers are also hand made. They are made from fine iron wire, which was twisted with the use of a drill. Then they were D shaped. The plate of the handles are from thin carton with 4 droplets of wood glue at each corner.

To explain the working of the "book pull" I made this diagram of the backside (that picture got lost)

• You drill a hole where the book is placed 
• Put some fishing wire through (tie the wire to the top of the book; otherwise there's no leverage)
• The wire goes around a wooden pin which guides the wire in a straight line towards an L shaped piece of wood (the leg of the L is faced up). 
• Another pin is drilled into the cabinet. I made some sort of peg, keeping the safety pin in place when it was glued.
• On this there will be a safety pin. This pin is prepped; meaning you cut most of the leg which holds the metal piece and you also cut off the sharp tip from the other leg. Then you bent this tip (about halve a centimeter) in a 90 degree angle sideways.
  Notice: When you place this on your cabinet make sure the L shaped piece and the safety pin leg don't make a 90 degree angle. A smaller angle is better since it delivers more force (place the pin more to the left)
• Add a "locking piece" which prevents the safety pin from turning. It mainly is a piece where you have a small saw cut in where the small leg of the safety pin fits into.
• Glue a U shaped piece of wood where you want the L shaped piece to be (the middle). The other U shaped piece goes onto the wall of your dollhouse, locking the door.
• Drill a hole through the L shaped piece to tie the fishing wire to.
• Place the L shaped piece underneath the U shaped piece and place the bend leg behind it.

Now you should have a working mechanism that pulls the L shaped piece far enough from its lock.

A picture that was still on my phone. Not the best quality but it's clear what it is.

Halloween Pumpkins (2007 and up)

It's a tradition ever since 2006 to carve my own pumpkin and not in the traditional face way.

I like to challenge myself every year, hoping they'll be better and better.

Latest one; 2016:

I tried to do a dragon this year. It was quite a bit of work and not totally the shape I wanted, but I was restricted by the shape of the pumpkin.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first non-face-pumpkin was a haunted house and the year after something with a witch. There are no pictures of those (or maybe they are somewhere, but I don't have them). These were just basic cut out patterns, no play of colors what so ever.

The 3rd was a tiger face in 2008 of which I did take a picture of:

A tiger face when the pumpkin wasn't lit.

The lit version. The red you see is the candle inside.

With some help from internet I learned there were at least 3 colors to be achieved when you carve: 

• Black- Leave the skin.
• Dark orange: Carve only the skin away.
• Light orange: Carve all (flesh and skin)

There's another method where they carve the flesh out (leaving the skin) to create another darker tone of orange, but I haven't tried that yet.

For Halloween 2009 I chose a wolf pattern:

Unlit wolf pattern pumpkin

Lit wolf pattern pumpkin

 That year I did 2 pumpkins. At my moms work there was a colleague of hers who wanted to have a carved pumpkin as well.
Therefor I made a Gizmo from the Gremlins one:

Unlit Gizmo pumpkin

Lit Gizmo pumpkin

In the year 2010 I wanted something more difficult so I chose an owl.

Unlit owl

Lit owl

The owl was quite a bit of work, it's wing spreads across most of the side of the pumpkin. And due to all the white/ light colors in the picture I had to remove quite a bit, but leaving enough to keep the feather pattern standing.

 In 2011 I had to make one in a short amount of time, since I was carving together with someone else who did it for the first time, therefor needing a lot of assistance.
I did Remy the Rat from the movie Ratatouille.

The pictures of Remy seem to be missing. This is the only one I could find.

In 2012 I wanted to make something with a lot of detail. And that got to be Sackboy from Little Big Planet.

One of my old techniques were to make a printed copy and use some tracing paper to put the lines on the pumpkin. This didn't always work that well, because the ink of the paper wouldn't always transfer on the pumpkin. Instead I drew it directly on the pumpkin with a marker.
Normally I'd also use a small Stanley knife. But because of all the small parts I used a precision knife to be able to carve the woolly pattern out.

It took me several hours to carve. The Halloween party had already ended before I had finished.

Sackboy from Little Big Planet.
My camera had crashed shortly after Halloween.
Luckily this picture was already put on my computer.

Okay, so the wool pattern might not be as perfect as I'd liked it to be, but non the less it looks pretty awesome if I may say it myself.

2013 I apparently skipped a year.

In 2014 I went back to another elaborate/ crazy carving idea that took me hours to complete: This victorian pattern:

Not perfectly symmetric, but could be worse.

In 2015 I gave it my first attempt to do a 3D carving. This is a technique where you carve out a complete face from the pumpkin flesh, instead of carving all the way through.

This one doesn't have a top that comes off, therefor I couldn't put a candle inside. None the less it had some great decorational value.

My first attempt to do a 3D carving. Gollum turned out a bit too Smeagol for my liking (too friendly) ;)

Something completely different but still Halloween pumpkin related:

My paper mache Halloween pumpkin.

Pumpkin made from newspaper shreds and some carton.

 For this I used the techniques described by:
Stolloween Pumpkins

Check out their website; they have plenty of Halloween ideas you can make with paper mache.