Halloween Special

Three Witch Cats

24 October 2010
As it's not too long till Halloween, I thought it would be an appropriate time to take a look at my scary Halloween range of wee creatures. Actually, they're not scary at all - even the ones I tried to make a little bit scary still ended up looking pretty cute :)



So first up are the Three Witches - Hilda, Freda and Esmerelda (and thanks to Helen for naming them!) I made the hats by cutting large circles from a thick-ish sheet of black polymer clay, and then cutting the circle in half before rolling one half into a cone. I made the hat rims by cutting a large circle, with a small circle cut out of the middle, and then slipping the resultant 'donut' over the top of the cone and blending them carefully so the join wasn't too obvious. Freda has a little spider hanging from the top of her hat - I threaded some waxed cotton through a small spider (not a real one), and threaded that through the hat, making sure the knots for both ends were neatly caught in the clay.

The broomstick is a cocktail stick with brown strands of clay attached, and Esmerelda's wand was made with a short length of thick gauge wire and a small star on top. (Esmerelda's my favourite one, but don't tell the others.)

The Three Witch Cats are currently for sale in my Folksy shop, complete with a small metal cauldron for their witches' brew. Yum.

Slugs and snails and puppy dog's tails?

Next up, here come the Snails (which really needs to be sung to that annoying tune from the current Boots advert). Thanks to a suggestion by Leigh about spider webs, Ariadne and Phaedra were born, together with their travelling companions, Charlotte and Shelob.

Ariadne and Charlotte

Phaedra and Shelob

I made the cobwebs by extruded some white clay, and then (very carefully) laying it out into a cobweb shape. To create the slightly 'baggy' look of the strands, I used a clay shaper to gently stretch the horizontal strands. They have proved to be remarkably robust. Both Snails can be found hanging out at The Snail Emporium.

Back to cats now. Skeleton Cat was inspired by Pat of PatsParaphernalia) - I have a great time on my Quernus Facebook page bouncing ideas around, and in one thread when we were discussing Halloween ideas, Pat come up with the idea of dressing up cats as though they were going guising, and thus the idea of Wee Skeleton Cat was born.

Now you see me...

Now you, err, still see me...

I used glow-in-the-dark Fimo for the bones, chops and the tip of his tail. He just looked fantastic when the lights went out! He's only about 5cm tall, so making the bones for his paws was a bit fiddly, but definitely worth the effort! He's now taken up resident with a very good friend of mine, Jo, who has becoming something of a serial adopter... :)

And now to the smallest residents of the Quernus Halloween Collection - Halloween Mice with Pumpkins! I've been having a bit of thing with mice of late (no, not like that), and so the thought of Wee Mice in witches' hats with their very own tiny pumpkin proved too much to resist!

Anyone for pumpkin pie?

And last, but in no way least, we can't forget the Wee Pumpkin Cat! This wee mite first made an appearance back in September 2009, and hasn't changed substantially then. You can find out how to make your very own Wee Pumpkin Cat in the autumn issue of the UK Handmade magazine at page 24 - there's even a very fetching shot of my left thumb, so you can't argue with that. Wee Pumpkin Cats were joined this year by Morgana the Pumpkin Snail. Both Morgana and the Wee Pumpkin Cats are available on my Folksy shop (Morgana decided to drop in for a cup of tea).

Pumpkins galore

Happy Halloween, peeps! I'll be at Samlesbury Hall Farmer's Market and Craft Fair on the day itself - the Hall is reputed to be haunted, so I'll let you know if I hear anything strange and spooky on the day :)

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