# Spooky Tree 2008



## LHALLOW (Aug 10, 2004)

This year’s big project was to create a big spooky tree for my cemetery. I came across a great tutorial on one of the threads and decided this method would be the cheapest way to go about making this prop. It ended up costing me $13.00 to make.

Here is what I used:
Various bones and skulls (free, every good haunter owns tons of bones)
Aluminum Foil - not even half a roll ( $1.a roll at Dollar Tree)
¾ of a roll of chicken wire ($7. a roll at Menards)
Old newspapers donated by my mom ripped into various sizes(free)
1 can of Great Stuff (free, left over from last year)
1 can polyurethane spray paint (free, had a couple cans left over)
6 cups of flour (free, who doesn’t have flour?)
24 cups of water (free, from the rain barrel)
6 cans of black spray paint ($.96 a can at Walmart)
½ can of brown spray paint (free, left over from last year)
Various acrylic paints for accents (free, I always keep staple colors)
1 plastic Jack O Lantern (free, someone was throwing it out)
1 piece of PVC to use as a base (free, left over from last year)
1 piece of scrap wood to put under the PVC (free)

First I spent a day making replicas of my various bones. I covered the parts I wanted to use in aluminum foil, making sure to get into all the indentations. I then made a batch of Paper Mache (1 cup flour to 4 cups water, stir until smooth, boil for 2 minutes stirring constantly and then let cool completely.) Coating one piece of paper at a time in the mache, I covered the aluminum foil with 2 layers of paper. Once dry, the skulls are done. Other bones may require cutting off the original and then another layer of mache to get them back together. 

For the tree, I pretty much followed the tutorial mentioned above with only a few changes:

-I didn’t use Great Stuff inside the tree at all, I made a base out of PVC and plywood to give some support
-I attached my paper mache bones as I went along and used mache to hold them in place
-I used Great Stuff to create all the veining 
-I sprayed the whole tree black first, then lightly went over the bark of the tree with the brown spray paint. I then went back and dry brushed the acrylic paint on all the veining, bones and the pumpkin
-I didn’t want any leaves on my tree and used moss and spider web to decorate it

Here it is about half finished: 









Close up of one of my paper mache bones:









And...done:


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