Halloween Miniature Garden

I really wanted to make a Halloween fairy garden this year, and I had an old birdbath. So, I went to factorydirectcraft.com, where I'd bought my fairies for my first fairy garden to see what Halloween ones they might have. They had several cute ones, but when I saw these miniature vampires, I fell in love with them! I guess this is technically a miniature garden since their not really fairies.

I pictured Vinny in his little car on his way up to Mort and Vlad's vampire castle for their yearly Halloween party, lol. While I was waiting for them to arrive in the mail, I went searching the house for something to turn into a vampire castle. I found these three snow cone syrup bottles with very little left in them from the grandkids snow cone making this past summer. I thought they just might work. I still needed roofs, so I used cut paper bowls and rolled them to fit snug on top and stapled them together. I also cut a coffin shaped door from a paper plate.

I wanted to add texture to all of this, before painting them, so I glued on cut up paper napkins.

After it dried, I added texture on all the napkin covered bottles, roofs, and door. This needed to dry overnight before painting. I used a product called wood icing, but any flexible texture would do.

I painted two coats of a dark gray paint to the upper portions of the bottles, and used a light gray paint pen to paint the raised design on the bottles. I painted all the textured parts gray, and when it dried, I painted black onto the raised part of the texture. I painted the door red, and after it dried I painted on crackle, after it dried I painted on black. I repeated the process again with red, because it wasn't as red as I wanted it.

I used a funnel to add a little sand to the bottles. I glued on the roofs, and glued the bottles together, and glued them to their base on the painted birdbath. The rocky moss staircase was a challenge, but I cut the foam stuff, pinned and glued as I went along. I used some rock and moss underneath it to support it while I worked.

I glued moss around the base of the castle, down the sides, and glued on moss and rocks to the staircase. I secured Vlad and Mort in place on a ledge from the foam stuff.

Everything else was easy and quick! I added cut up craft sticks painted black for the tombstones and boarded up windows. Black sand and rocks, a few Halloween clearance items completed the garden. I tucked a battery powered string of lights with a four hour timer into the side of the castle hidden by moss, and added more moss around the edges of the birdbath.

I find doing these little gardens so fun and relaxing. But, the look on the grandkids faces when they saw it was priceless! I hope you enjoy my post. :)

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