Creepy Spooky Haunted Halloween Tree

 Once again, I am happily hosting the October Make and Take at our local library later this month. Last Year we had a mad scientist themed slime making session.  This year, we are going to be making a Creepy Spooky Haunted Halloween Tree.  I found the original idea here, but spookified it by adding little ghost stickers, moss and black construction paper for the leaves.  I decided to bring this sample tree to the library for the kid's to have a preview. I then realized a tree made from a paper bag isn't going to hold up well with tiny hands grabbing at it for a month.  It needs a protective barrier!

I remembered seeing a cloche made from plastic liter bottles and thought that would be perfect and ...cheap! I got the how-to here (theirs turned out super cute!).

 The saga of this cloche thing coming to be is as followed, but be prepared for some whining. First off, it is really hard to find 3 liter bottles anymore...but trusty $ tree does have them.  So for several days we were drinking mediocre Tropical Fruit Punch just for the damn bottle.  I guess we could have easily dumped it down the sink but I can't waste anything, even if it's a bucks worth of sugary crap. Next up, removing the label, which proved to be a bitch to come off.  There was about a 2 inch by 7 inch strip of some adhesive holding onto the thin layered plastic label remnant.  I tried soaking it but it didn't budge, of course not!  I spent a hour using goo gone and pealing at it's onion layer-like plastic, scratching at it with my finger nails.  As this whole process was going down I kept thinking "This is not worth it, this is not worth it, this is not worth it".  But I was in too deep and I had to see it through.  So label is off, finally. Next I had to dremmel off the top inch or so of the mouth opening...10 minutes of smelling toxic melted plastic. This is not worth it. But almost there...on to the last steps. The base and topper are made from stryrofoam covered in black tissue paper, which went ok.  I hot glued moss around the base and topper to hide a few imperfections.  But here is the final problem... the tree looks smushed inside it!!!! BLAH!!!  Yes, I tried the tree inside it as soon as the damn adhesive came off and I cut the bottom off but I pressed on hoping for the best. The best is not there...Craft Fail.

But, I try to look at the big picture here...the tree turns out looking fairly neat and the kids are going to have fun making them and I will have fun helping them.

Sorry this post is seeped in negativity...it is a mirror image of it's writer.  I feel like I am being engulfed by devil's snare.... I can not relax and the batteries in my wand died...no Lumos Maxima.  Not yet anyway.