Halloween Owl

We had an odd day yesterday (by odd I mean the kids were driving me batty on their day home from school- Columbus Day) so the Halloween decor was actually brought out this morning. The kids made me promise to wait for them so I don't have many pictures to show you until then. However, I did want to do a small feature on this owl before/after in case Halloween comes and goes as quickly as it did last year so here he is.

Before:


Can you tell I craft on that old TV tray often? lol
I found this guy at Trade and Treasures (I hope I got that name right, local thrift shop) for less than a dollar. I believe it's ceramic. It's really heavy and a pretty good size. They had a whole flock of them in varying sizes. Did you know a "flock" of owls is actually called a pack? Makes them more creepy don't ya think?


After:


Isn't he sparklingly spooktacular? I just painted him with black paint, slopped on some glue with a paint brush and then sprinkled on the glitter. I had this big glitter container thinking it was going to take a ton. I used about 1/100 of the glitter. Seriously. That stuff goes far! I did it over a paper plate and then moved it to a clean plate and reused the loose glitter. I did it in sections: head, back, and front. It wasn't as messy as I thought it was going to be. The glitter I used was sort of heavy like sand. It was about a dollar at Hobby Lobby. Btw, during Halloween, you might want to get your black or orange glitter ahead of time because I got the last black glitter in the entire store. That's why I ended up with the fine sand type rather than the regular stuff but it was a good thing because I now prefer it. It doesnt blow around and you know how I feel about glitter! I wish it would have photographed a bit better. You can really see all the little details of the owl and I worried that it would get lost after the glitz was added but instead, it highlighted and brought the detail out.

Like I said earlier, I'm waiting for the kids to do most of the decorating, so I don't have much to show right now. I did this last night though, on the chalkboard in the kitchen...



I thought the kids would really love it, but they both had a few not-so-appreciative words to say about it. The Scientist said the bats were supposed to be black and that the Jolly Roger never appears on tombstones. I told him it was the sign for poison. He told me that is never used on tombstones either. Ms. Thang agreed and asked me what was up with the fat faced ghost. Um ghosts are floating free forms! They aren't supposed to be uniform. Gaw!
The kids decided this board will change daily or weekly with each of us taking turns, obviously thinking they can do better. I did like their idea for the week leading up to Halloween though. One will start by drawing something spooky and each day one of us will add to it. Sounds fun, but this doesn't mean that I agree with their views on my art. Everybody's a critic...


**I'm playing around with the header and background of my blog so there will probably be changes often until I find something I like best.