grave – Ali Does It Herself

I actually made this project LAST year, but because I never get my holiday stuff organized in time to publish it any time before the holiday it’s for, I decided to set this up so I would look timely and well-prepared this year.

Anyway, last year, back when the Pie and I were still in St. John’s (weird that we’re not there anymore), Fussellette organized a mixer for the geographical society at MUN and she decided on having a candy bar for everyone to snack on while they got jiggy (do people even say that in the far-off future of 2013? Better question: do people even say that NOW?). I volunteered to make a stand for the suckers Fussellette insisted on having, along with our FORTY POUNDS of other candy that we bought.

You might like to make something like this for your own Hallowe’en party.

At first I thought I would just do something plain, like a store display, but maybe with some sparkly skulls we’d picked up from Dollarama. But then, I was looking at a shoe box and I was struck dumb with inspiration (not true: I immediately texted Fussellette about my genius and then told the Pie all about it, despite him not wanting to know). So here’s what I came up with.

I’m going to make a grave yard — well, part of one. It will have a freshly covered grave with headstone and some nice grass all about, and little holes for holding all the suckers. That will be the top of the box. Then the extra suckers (there were 100 in the bag) can be stored inside the box itself.

So first, on the shoe box I drew where I wanted the grave to go.

Then I used a punch to make some evenly spaced holes where the suckers would eventually fit.

In order to make it so the suckers didn’t just slide all the way through the holes until they were stopped by their candy tops, I had to construct a little hanging platform on the underside of the box lid that would prevent their sliding around and also not interfere with the opening and closing of the box itself. I just taped a few pieces of spare cardboard in strategic places and there we go.

Now I got to do the fun stuff.

I had a package of Model Magic lying around that I didn’t yet have a project connected to, so I figured its lightweight nature would be perfect to make a gravestone. A bit of shaping (not too much, as I wanted the stone to look old and cracked) and some choice words (stamped in with the same punch I used for the holes) and I set that aside for the requisite 72 hours to dry. I’m going to paint it later.

To ensure that the surface of my gravesite didn’t end up accidentally filling in the holes I punched, I marked their places with wooden skewers.

Then I went outside. This moss I hauled up from the path next door and the dirt is from my garden. This explains why I can’t grow anything. I keep taking all the dirt.

Spread some Mod Podge. Attach some moss (I snipped off only the tops of the moss, and replanted it when I was done). Repeat.

For the grave dirt, I mixed my garden dirt with some Mod Podge to make mud of sorts, and spooned it onto the area. I added a few rocks for visual interest, and then sprinkled some un-glued dirt on top to get the colour right. Then I left THAT for 48 hours to dry. You can still see the box through some of the moss but honestly, I don’t think anyone else would look this closely at a candy dispenser. Mostly they are probably just thinking “Free candy! Gimme!”

Once you’ve got all the stuff glued and set, you can take away the skewers.

While it was drying I tacked on some black construction paper with tape as a sort of border to the whole thing, and to cover the shoe box-ness of the shoe box. Then I used craft paint to freehand a picket fence all around (you can see it in the finished shots).

Then, much later, I painted the headstone, filling in the text with black craft paint and adding a bit of texture here and there.