Yet Another Idea Stolen by Me - Mini Skelly

**Nevergoback** · 09-19-2010,02:14 AM

When I saw the thread with what the talented people on this forum have done with the mini skeletons, I was inspired to do something. I stole this idea from a website that sells fabric patterns for primitive dolls + what I've seen done to the mini skeletons here on this forum. I am no artist, have zero artistic talent and the things I do can be copied pretty much by anyone, so here's the how to below.

Everything was purchased at Michaels and it was all on sale, except for the skeleton garland which I picked up at 99 cent only stores. Michaels sells it too and you get six for 2.99 instead of 3 for 99 cents.

Here's how:
Materials: Smaller of the two crows at Michaels
Greenish flower stem (comes with three flowers)
Autumn floral pick with berries and small pumpkins
Bag of small pumpkins (6) - on a rack somewhere near the picks
Ribbon of your choice
Brown Acrylic paint
Hot Glue or mini hot glue gun
Xacto knife

What I did: I bent the skeleton using the tip of the mini hot glue gun, the smaller tip is easier to manage, you can use your large one if that is all you have. I would hold the limb at a bend and apply the tip of the gun to the front side of the bend then to the back side of the bend. The glue gun will melt this plastic so check frequently.

Pop his head off, just pull it.
Carve face into small pumpkin with Xacto, paint exposed white foam with brown or mix brown/orange acrylic. I used fine point sharpie to draw face on first, if you mess up, you can always paint over it, just be careful.
poke small hole in bottom of little foam pumpkin for neck to go through.
Take your greenish flower stem and pull off one of the smaller flowers, pull off the bottom plastic and the petals come apart in rings. Glue one of the rings to the bottom of the pumpin lining up the hole in the ring to the hole you just poked into the bottom of the pumpkin then shove the skelly neck into the hole.
Take berry pick and find the little tiny pumpin with spiral on stem. The spiral is part of the stem, cut off enough to have a stem and the spiral, glue to his hand.
Figure where you want the skeleton to sit and glue him to crow.
Measure lenghth of ribbon long enough to go around crow neck and glue in circle. Measure another length long enough to reach his hands and glue the ends to inside of circle while it is off the crow. Place it back around crow neck and glue his other hand to it like he is holding reins. That's it. I stuck one of his feet through it just because.

I still feel like it needs a base or something. I tried to put the crow on a 'Y' section of branch I had, but it didn't sit right. Of course I will play with it some more. Another thing you could do is make this a centerpoint of a floral arrangement or centerpiece. The primitive doll that gave me the original idea sat on a wide short wooden candlestick, but the doll is made with a taper at the feet and well this crow has real feet. Maybe I will try attaching it to a skull. I could floral pin it to a large foam one I have, or a pumpkin for that matter.

You can see my second attempt at carving the little pumpkin and bending the skeleton, I put more of a bend on his knees so he could sit.

As a side note, that DVD in the picture was at Target, it is DVD/ cd set with sounds and scenes. Five scenes go for 45 minutes, they are like the scenes you can put on your TV for screensaver/background, they have some sounds, but not much movement. I may try projecting the scenes onto my upstairs window from the inside, for $9.99 it was worth the risk to try it out. They had them out by the candy with other Halloween Movie DVD's. I haven't played the cd yet, looks like classical Fugues and Sonatas...with a Toccata thrown in for good measure.

**halloween_sucks_in_the_uk** · 09-19-2010,05:34 AM

That's awesome I love pumpkins headed dolls, Oh and don't sell yourself short. I think you're very artistic

**Nevergoback** · 09-19-2010,10:06 AM

Thank you, here is the finished piece. I knew it needed something, a found a larger than normal foam skull that I had from last year which turned out to be the perfect platform.

**SkellyCat** · 09-19-2010,10:27 AM

That turned out just great! I like your choice of viney-flowers. I also think that the little skelly with the witch hat is very clever too.

**Shadowbat** · 09-19-2010,01:36 PM

That is extremely cool. Love it.

**GobbyGruesome** · 09-19-2010,02:00 PM

Holy crap!!! That's just brilliant. You say it's stolen but i've never seen anything like it.

It's got a kind of festive "Day of the Dead" feel to it. So very impressive.

**JustWhisper** · 09-19-2010,03:05 PM

I love it also. I have to agree I have never seen anything like it before. You did a great job, even if you copied it. I suck at copying too. LOL Never comes out quite right.