Life Sprinkled With Glitter: Man Eating Plant Halloween Decor

Oh My, It has been a LONG time since I last posted! I can't believe Summer is gone and Fall is here! I got my pumpkin Decor up early! I LOVE pumpkin season and all crafts that have to do with them! I saw this awesome Pin on Pinterest of a Man Eating Plant using a craft pumpkin for the head, from Shirley at Eden Makers. Below is the picture of her Man Eating Plant, if you click on the picture below it will take you to her blog and post!

I absolutely LOVED this idea! My husband and I have been adding plants and working on the front landscape so I thought this would be perfect! It's and plant AND halloween decor at the same time!

What's best is you hardly need any supplies to make this!

WHAT YOU NEED:

A large branch

one carvable craft pumpkin

a bunch of silk leaves

green spray paint

hot glue or gorilla glue

Here is a few pictures of the branches we chose for this project. I actually made two, one for me and one for my Mom.

Cut all the large branches off the main body and leave a few small one sticking out.

After you have your branch, its time to cut your craft pumpkin.

Here is the side view to show you the way the mouth goes! Just get creative, it doesn't need to be exactly like mine. You can use a pumpkin carving knife to do this or I just used a regular small knife (just be careful if you do it this way).

I wanted to use two different colors of green spray paint for this project. I thought it added to the spookiness of the plant. I spray painted the inside of the mouth light green and the outside darker green. I also used this same dark green spray paint to paint the main large branch.

For my leaves, I found some awesome halloween leaves for 70% off at a craft store. I wanted the leaves to match the pumpkin head so I spray painted the tops of the leaves with dark green and the backs of the leaves with light green. I tried to do it very lightly so I wouldn't cover all the cool detail of the leaves. Below shows the process of painting the leaves.

This next step is the hardest part of the project. On Shirley's blog she just uses hot glue. I found that I was standing there FOREVER waiting for the glue to dry and trying to get it to hold.

Next time I might use a different glue, like Gorilla glue etc.

We ended up adding some tape to get it to hold a little better and then I spray painted over that.

I will say, I was still nervous about it holding so I just had my husband add a few nails into it with the nail gun and then I felt that it was VERY sturdy!

Now on Shirley's blog she has a great idea to put the stick into a pot and make it stay with spray foam insulation. If you end up doing it this way, I will tell you that spray foam insulation is very light weight. You will need to add a lot of weight to your pot, before adding the insulation, to be able to hold the weight of your large branch. I thought it was just easier to make sure I had enough straight branch at the bottom to stick into a large potted flower that we already had by our door. I think it also makes it look more realistic when it's sticking out of a pot with a real plant in it.

Below is a picture from Shirley's blog of the spray foam insulation holding the branch in the pot.

Once you have your branch in a pot, hot glue the silk leaves to the smaller branches as you think it looks good. Here is a picture of my finished Man Eating Plant by our front door. He is ready to greet our guests! hehe