Haunted BirdhousesCreatively Sam's

Halloween is right around the corner, so I thought I’d make a new centerpiece/vignette. I haven’t quite decided where I’m going to use it, but I like the way it turned out. Welcome to my Haunted Birdhouses.

The whole idea started when I found these little Halloween birdhouses.

If you can’t find these, you can always use a plain birdhouse & add wooden shapes to them. I removed the cord from the top of the houses and painted them with acrylic paint.

I added a little glow in the dark paint to the ghost, eyes of the cat & eyes & mouth of the pumpkin. (all I had was glow in the dark fabric paint, but it worked)

And to make it reflect light a little better, I added black holographic glitter to the roof & base using Mod Podge. (I know what you’re thinking… any excuse to add glitter, Sam)

Then I got a piece of Styrofoam that was long enough to hold all three houses. I got mine that I had saved from some packaging. I used grey acrylic paint & covered the Styrofoam.

Then I got out some white wired picket fencing.

I painted the fencing with the same grey acrylic paint. I didn’t do a great job because I wanted it to look aged & eerie.

I used wire floral pins to anchor the fence to the foam. I inserted the pins close to the wire on the fence. Then I painted the pins with the grey paint.

Then I put the birdhouses on the Styrofoam.

It looked cute, and I could have left it like that, but I can never leave well enough alone. I gathered some twigs together & bound the base with some brown floral tape. This formed a little tree that I put behind the center house. (I dug out a little hole in the Styrofoam & used a touch of hot glue)

Then I got out a couple of sizes of wooden balls. I painted one large ball & one small ball orange. (for a pumpkin) Then I painted one small ball white. (for a ghost)

The ghost: I found a two hole button to fit the bottom of the small white wooden ball. Then I threaded a piece of fishing line through the button & through the ball. I did this so the fishing line would hold the ball.

Then using the end of a thin paint brush, I dipped it into some black acrylic paint to make the eyes & mouth.

Then I cut 2 pieces of tulle into a circle & cut a small hole in the center. Don’t worry about making the circle too large. I did, and just cut the bottom off when it was done.

I threaded the fishing line though the button, then both ends through the white ball, then both ends through the hole in the tulle. I pulled the tulle tight around the ball & tied it off with fishing line just below the button. I played with the length of the fishing line until I got the length I wanted for the little ghost to hang from one of the branches of the tree. Then I cut off any extra length of the tulle so that the ghost fit.

The pumpkin was just the two orange balls glued together. Then I added a darkened shade of the orange to make lines on the balls to make them look a little more like pumpkins. I used the end of a paint brush to make the eyes & a tooth pick to make the mouth. Then I twisted a piece of wrapping paper tissue & glued it into the top of the smaller ball to make the stem.