Creepy Garden

This creepy little garden was inspired by Tim Burton, whose wonderful characters and swirly landscapes have always been part of a Halloweenesque world. A terrific exhibition just wrapped up at MoMA and will be coming to the Tiff Bell Lightbox in Toronto in November, offering a selection of paintings, drawings, shortfilms and so on, spanning his career. While it won’t be on time for Halloween, it’s still a great idea to take your kids so they can enjoy his work, and the many activities that will be offered.

Materials

• foam base
• black paint
• small plastic insects
• spider webbing
• black or white pipe cleaners
• branches & plant material
• drawings or printed images of tombstones
• toothpicks
• scotch tape

Instructions

1. A trip to the dollar store will get  you most of the materials you need to make this garden. Paint the foam base in black and allow to dry overnight. The base can be any shape or size you choose.

2. Decide how many pipe cleaners you would like to use and wrap each one around a pencil in order to curl the tops. Place each one in the foam base.

3. Either draw some tombstones, or do a search on the internet, print up a few, and cut them out. Remember to keep them small since they will be attached to toothpicks. Using scotch tape, secure each one half way up a toothpick, and poke the bottom part it into the foam base.

4. Add some branches and other plant material which will dry well. Finally, gently stretch some spider webbing across the branches, and for the finishing touch, scatter a few plastic creatures along the base.