Spooky Silhouettes

Mid-September and I see many blogs already busy with Halloween decorating. *umph* not really my type of thing, I have to admit, even though the whole Halloween thing-a-ma-jig originates in my host country, Ireland. But well, my latest project happens to fit the season pretty well...

If you are a regular reader, you know by now that I am quite concerned obsessed with recycling. That is partly due to the fact that I once had a summer job working on a rubbish dump. (Don't ask!) The amount of trash that goes into landfill is just mindblowing! I won't bore you with statistics, but I can see from our household alone that 21st century human beings generate more rubbish than ever. While we recycle as much rubbish as possible, it still bugs me that there is so much plastic material being thrown away. Hence my interest in reusing packaging materials.

With one two-litre-bottle of milk every day, I had built up quite a stash of plastic to work with. I had great plans for a project - which unfortunately didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I had to find a way of using the cut up pieces of plastic - and this is what I came up with: a simple spooky silhouette to stick into your flower pots.

Here's what I did: First of all I cut my milk bottle to get a flat piece of plastic.

Catering for the Halloween theme, I decided on a spooky tree shape. A tree is pretty easy to cut, so I basically free-handed it. But you could always print out a tree shape from cliparts, transfer it to the plastic and then cut it out.

Note that I cut a zigzag at the bottom of the tree - that's for easier sticking the silhouette into the flower pot.






I actually quite like the silhouettes white and without further decoration. I have a beautiful shop-bought one of a little fawn that creates a beautiful shadow on the chimneybreast when the sunlight catches it on my kitchen mantlepiece. The silhouette itself pretty much blends into the white background, but the shadow it creates against the wall is really surprising and lovely.

But to make it a bit more fun and stand out a bit more for illustration purposes, I cut out an owl from black paper and stuck him onto the tree.










I also tried my hand at a ghost. Whoa, this looks like a curvy bombshell of a she-ghost *lol*. Dancing lambada or something... Ola!!! Again, I cut her free-hand and then used a punch to make her eyes.

Sorry, there was no bright sunlight in my kitchen this afternoon, so the silhouette and shadow do not stand out as much as they should. I guess you could always give the silhouettes a coat of black spray paint to make it fit the dark and spooky Halloween theme. But anyway, there you are - using rubbish to prettify scarify your home.

I am positively fawning over the silhouettes...

Best,



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