Add-On's & The Aging Process

Time to start the fine tuning of this Spooky Old Halloween House with some add-on's, and making this baby look more aged as if the house had been neglected for years.  It's also the fun part in bringing this house to life by giving her more character.

Babette decided she wanted to make a weather vane suitable for the theme of this house.  She drew a bat, an arrow, and a crescent moon on base wood, then gave it to me so the pieces could be cut and sanded.  Let me tell you, over the years I've done a lot of wood cutting on a scroll saw, but cutting these tiny pieces on such soft type wood was very tricky.  If you're not careful, and don't go slow, the piece could easily break or spilt.  Luckily we were successful on the first attempt.  

After the cutting, Babette glued all the pieces to the center spire and painted them black.

When dried, she next used a little brown, rust, turquoise, and white to give it that old rusty look.

Next it was on to the steps and walkway leading up to the front porch.  Babette decided a slate look would be neat.  At this point I must have had that deer with the headlights look in his eye, because when she mentioned slate, I was thinking how do you plan to do this; isn't that going to be a difficult job trying to cut out all those tiny pieces and then paint them to look like real slate?  This showed my ignorance, or as I prefer to think, lack of experience in the crafting business.  Using one of her famous lines on me Babette simply said, "hide and watch junior"!  All she did was take a couple of disposable foam dinner plates she had lying around from an earlier project, draw the desired pattern. and then cut them to the appropriate size.  Next she took a scoring tool to draw the pattern, and then used some gray, zinc, black, rust, white, and midnight blue paints; and, VOILA you've got that slate look .... Smart Girl!   

The Nano lights, along with some outdoor light fixtures, extra electrical wire, and a battery pack with switch finally showed up in the mail.  Babette was especially anxious to see how the tiny Yellow Nano light was going to look in a small pumpkin she sculped earlier for the front porch.  As you can see, we think it turned out great.  I drilled a little hole in the porch where the electrical wire was fed over to the pumpkin, from underneath  and over into the house where the battery pack will be located.  The front porch lights, along with some other special lighting effects and some additional sculpted pumpkins and crows will be added next.

Of course, it wouldn't be an old, neglected, and run down house unless there was evidence of disrepair in some of the areas.  So, my ever resourceful wife took her wire cutters and proceeded to damage some of the spindles on the upper balcony.  Yep, they definitely have the look of needing to be replaced.

The last thing on today's list was to paint the house white, and then randomly add a touch of watered down black.  The black base underneath with the white on top gives this house an old and neglected appearance, while the diluted black gives it an overall appearance of having mildew growing on the siding.  End result is the original paint looks like it's been fading for years and now in desperate need of a new paint job.  She done good! 😁

So this is where we stand today.  Next will be the addition of some black crows, and then we will attack the yard area out front.  Babette plans to build a big tree and add some vines and moss in certain areas of the house.  Until next time .....