Craft Tutorial: Creepy Creatures Halloween Candy Bowl #BalanceRewards

I could not wait to take on this latest craft challenge…go to Walgreens and purchase Halloween items, then make my own Halloween craft out of them! Here’s what I created…a Creepy Creatures Halloween Candy Bowl. The owl (complete with motion-activated blinking eyes and “whoooo whoooo” sounds), plus the bowl, and the bats and cockroaches, were all found at Walgreens.

I also go to try out the new Walgreens Balance Rewards Card. It was so easy to download the Walgreens app onto my phone, even easier to join, and even even easier to use!

They scanned the card right from my phone, and I got all my sale prices.

The Light Up Owl was what inspired my project.

All the accessories I needed were there.

For more of this super creepy shopping story, please visit my Google+ album (and see who G+ kept asking me to tag!

Here’s what I brought home from Walgreens. I ended up not using the witch pet costume or the rubber spiders (more on that later!).

How to Make a Creepy Creatures Halloween Candy Bowl

Materials:

From Walgreens, you’ll need a Light Up Owl, A bag of Cockroaches and Bats, and a plastic candy bowl. Also, save the styrofoam packaging from the Light Up Owl.

From your craft stash, you’ll need glitter craft paint, paint brushes, jute twine, butchers twine, hot glue gun (and plenty of hot glue sticks), scissors, a foot and a half of wire (I used 16-gauge, but you could also use a wire hanger), and about an 18x18 inch piece of black or dark brown felt.

Directions

So first I removed the owl from the packaging. First thing I noticed was the batteries and the on/off switch for the owl was at the bottom. So there’s no way I can glue down the owl onto something (like a wooden block or jar like I was previously thinking), because I’ll want to turn it off and on, and change the batteries. So I had to think of an alternative.

Until then, I started painting the owl with glitter paint. I used orange, purple, gold and green paint.

First I painted his ears gold and his glasses purple. I particularly loved how the gold ears turned out. So it was at this point I decided not to use the little witch pet costume (I was going to use the hat to put on the owl…it was also at this point I didn’t think the witch’s hat went with my theme anyways).

Then I painted the back in the four different colors in random order. Unfortunately, as you’ll see, we won’t see much of the back. Oh well.

In the front, I painted the top of his chest with lots of glitter paint, decreasing the amount as I went down.

Then I painted his feet green, (and his toenails purple, which I did later).

While the owl dried, I started on the bowl. I didn’t think the jack o lanterns on the bowl went with our theme. So I covered them with jute twine. I applied a bead of hot glue every two inches as I went around and around.

Somehow I thought of using the packaging as a pedestal for the owl. This way, I can remove the owl to change the batteries or turn the lights on and off.

Covering the styrofoam with felt would help disguise it a little bit better.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t see his awesome green feet.

So I took the other piece of styrofoam that was along the back of the packaging, and cut it in half. I stacked it beneath the first piece…

…and it was a much better height.

But, I still didn’t think the owl was stable enough. So I took that last piece of styrofoam that I broke off, and put that at the back of the owl to support him from the back.

So I first glued the two pieces of styrofoam to the bottom of the bowl. Then I hot glued the back piece. Next I covered it all with the dark felt and hot glued it in place. I also wrapped some twine around the back. Now he has a nice seat to sit on. But…I will probably add a black piece of wire and wrap it around the base of the owl and around the back piece of styrofoam on Halloween night after I turn on the switch, so he really stays in place.

Okay, now for the outside of the bowl. At first I was going to glue these rubber spiders onto the outside of the bowl, along with the bats and cockroaches. The girls were excited to help me paint the spiders with glitter. I’m glad they weren’t too creeped out by the whole project!

Now if you’re smarter than me, you found something wrong in the last paragraph. Glue on rubber? Um, that doesn’t work! Now I know where “I’m rubber you’re glue” comes from. The hot glue simply would not stick to the rubber. Nope. So we will save the spiders for another project.

So we painted more cockroaches.

Even with glitter on them, the cockroaches seemed to fade against the jute twine. So I added some white butchers twine on top, with the jute twine still peeking out at the top and bottom edges. The cockroaches were more plasticy than rubbery, so we were in luck…they stuck on just fine with hot glue. Phew!

How about the bats? They are rubber too.

They had these suction cups on the back, but they wouldn’t stick to the plastic bowl. So I thought of another way to display them…in flight! I tied some twine around each suction cup.

Then I took a piece of 16-gauge wire (you could also use a wire hanger), and curved it so both ends inserted into the sides of the owl’s chair.

Then I tied the bats to the wire, facing down (unlike this picture…sorry!), so it’s like they’re forming a moon around the owl. Trim the twine ends and put a dab of hot glue on the knots.

All done. I really had so much fun making this candy bowl…I was actually sad when I was finished with it! And I’m glad I was able to make something creepy, but not ghoulish.

I chose Tootsie Pops, of course, for our candy. Owl. Tootsie Pops. Get it? I think I just saw the owl roll his eyes in disgust and annoyance at me.

When your unsuspecting victims reach in for a piece of candy, the owl will light up and start whooting. I think my candy bowl is too cumbersome for holding at the front door to pass out candy, so I will probably put this on our doorstep when we take the girls out Trick or Treating and we’re not home. The owl will stand guard…WHOOOO dares to take more than one? And WHOOOO dares to ask me how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

I was so surprised by all the inspiration I found at Walgreens to create something for Halloween. There are lots more ideas in my head…hope to have time to create one more thing with those spiders we didn’t use! Plus, I’m really excited to shop and save money at Walgreens more often, now that I have one of their handy rewards cards. Hope you’ll head on over to Walgreens to be inspired and save. Find out more about Walgreens and their Balance Rewards Card on the Walgreens website, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Walgreens  #CBias #SocialFabric

Linking: Carolyn’s Homework :: Mad in Crafts :: Tip Junkie:: Fine Craft Guild :: The Trendy Treehouse :: A Glimpse Inside :: The Frugal Girls :: Tidy Mom :: Whipperberry :: Tatertots and Jello :: Homemaker on a Dime::Serenity Now