Tutorial: Black Cat in a Pumpkin

It's Tutorial Tuesday....so let's create this cat in a pumpkin following a tutorial from Makin's Clay  The Halloween pumpkin is made from neon orange Makin's Clay and the cat's eyes are glow-in-the-dark clay, also from Makin's.

You gotta try this....

Halloween Spiders

You can call off the search party....I'm not lost!!!  LOL   I'm here and still trying to get caught up with my email and projects.   It's been a month since my last post and I have to say I'm sorry I'm having such a hard time getting back into the old blogging routine since my surgery!    Some new tutorials have been posted at my Air-Dry-Clay Tutorial Directory and the Cold Porcelain Tutorial Directory....so please check those sites.   

I've been thinking about doing more articles about all the air-dry clay artists, along with more reviews about the different self-hardening clays and other materials.  This could be a new focus for the New Clay News but there will still be lots of tutorials on my other blogs (with latest tutorials listed in sidebar here).   If you have any ideas or suggestions for the New Clay News,  all comments are welcome!

For today I wanted to tell you about this Halloween spider project from "Simple As That".   This Spooky Stone Spiders tutorial describes making the spooky critters using some scraps of wire, rocks and a few other things (see above photo).   These are really creepy and simple to make with stones found around the yard....but we're clay crafters, right?   Let's try making some of these using air-dry clay for the body.   Quick and easy!!   Kids will love 'em!!

Make a Paperclay Pumpkin Pail

This clever Halloween tutorial from Carmen Ellis (Spooky Hollow Folk Art Designs) is full of humor and tips for using Creative Paperclay.    Create the miniature pumpkin pail shown in photo above starting with a hollowed-out Styrofoam ball and Paperclay  (makes about a 4 inch pail).   Go to this page for Carmen's "Poor Man's Pumpkin Pail".

Here's a sampling showing her sense of humor....some things you may relate to!

• If you are half blind like me you might want to put your glasses on. ( My glasses are pitiful due to the dog eating them one night. ) 

You'll need:

• Paper towel, ( I get super messy. Probably because of my half eaten glasses. )
• Exacto tool or a sharp kitchen knife…( Don’t run with pointy objects )
• Or whatever you can find around the house to sculpt with. (Please don’t use your cat.)

She also suggests placing the sculpt in a 200 degree oven to speed up drying.   I'd hesitate to recommend that.   Styrofoam could give off some toxic fumes when heated.    Even if the foam ball is wrapped in clay, it still doesn't seem like a great idea to me.

What does sound like a great idea is to make some miniature pumpkins from Paperclay using the designs shared last week in Pumpkin Carving Lesson and Pumpkin Carving Part 2 along with the ideas shared in the tutorial above!

Pumpkin Carving Part 2

After yesterday's post I stumbled on another great pumpkin carver at Extreme Pumpkins.   There you'll find a gallery of carving ideas, how to tips, free patterns and lots of photos of pumpkin carving contest winners!   The "Cannibal Pumpkin" pattern is probably my favorite...I think...hard to choose!  The one shown above is an interpretation of the one shown on cover of the Extreme Pumpkins book (written by owner of website).


The "Puking Pumpkin" shown below is probably the most famous!   Yuk!!!

Oh my!!!  He found a use for those extra small pumpkins!   Quite creepy!

Tom has lots of creepy ideas!  *G*

Tom Nardone, the owner of ExtremePumpkins.com has written a number of top-selling books on pumpkin carving that are chock full of tips and patterns.  


    

I found Tom's article on preserving your carved pumpkin very interesting.  Tom did went through a lot of effort to test different commonly-used products on some carved pumpkins to see which kept the pumpkin preserved the longest!   A very thorough study IMHO!    


You'll just have to check out his website after watching this video showing some of his cool stuff!

At Extreme Pumpkins you'll also find a totally FREE PDF file to download with patterns for these 48 pumpkin faces, a how-to guide and other ideas.   This is  a Halloween-themed website to bookmark and return to over and over!

Pumpkin carving lesson

Halloween approaches and many would-be sculptors contemplate carving a pumpkin!   We can only hope to be as good as Ray Villafane (shown above and below), but he shows us how with a step-by-step pumpkin carving tutorial.     btw....I just discovered that there's a distinction between carving & sculpting.  Pumpkin carving involves carving a pattern into the pumpkin surface while a pumpkin sculpt uses the pumpkin itself as a 3D sculpted object.

Maybe you want to do something a little simplier (OK...a LOT simplier)....all that carving just looks too hard!   How about a stencil or pattern to follow.   Find some free patterns at Fantasy Pumpkins  and Spook Master and stencils for sale at  Pumpkin Stencils 101 .

You'll also find more carving tutorials and pattern links at Fantasy Pumpkins.    Look at this great fairy pattern shown on his homepage!

Ghost Necklace Tutorial

The other day we posted about a bat necklace.....here's another Halloween necklace.  Follow these step by step instructions for this cute Ghost Necklace from Makin's Clay.  They've used some glow-in-the-dark clay for this necklace, but I think those ghosts are cute enough to show off in the daylight!  ;-)    Nearly any air-dry clay would be suitable for this project!   

How about some matching dangling ghosts or pumpkins for earrings?  hmmm?

Bat Necklace Tutorial

Make yourself some Halloween jewelry with this black & orange bat necklace tutorial from Makin's Clay!

Make a Trick or Treat Sign with Clay

This tutorial is from Makin's Clay and uses their "Glow-in-the-Dark" clay for the bats.

"Trick or Treat" signboard   http://www.makinsclay.com/US/eng/project_gallery/seasonal/halloween02.htm