Dollar Store Halloween: Hedges

One of my main crafty rules in life is 'use what you've got'. For awhile now I was thinking about adding some skulls to this large hedge that borders the sidewalk. I like subtlety in my Halloweeny outdoor decor. Don't get me wrong I love a good yard display but as I  am not quite there yet I am enjoying adding spooky touches to my yard throughout the month making it spookier as we go.

So today is Part Two of our Dollar Store Halloween outdoor decor series: Hedges

 Remember these little guys from the Halloween Shopping of a couple weeks ago? Well now we are going to get some use out of them.

 First off they were looking a little 'perfect' for my taste so I mixed up some red, black, and green paint with some water and basically started to 'baste' the skulls in this color mix. Since they are plastic they wont take the color exceedingly well but I was going for a weathered uneven look so every few minutes I would just add another watery layer of paint and let it dry. I did mine outside so they dried pretty quickly.

 This next part is the most difficult and if kids are interested in this project this will be the part where parental supervision is a MUST. Seriously. Now you may find a better way to do this but what I did was create two small holes on the back of my skulls using a nail and a hammer. Then I made the holes bigger with a couple of screwdrivers. Since these are dollar store skulls the plastic is not very thick and once you get the hang of it this step actually goes pretty quick. Just be careful since other types of plastic could be more durable/slippery increasing risk of injury. After all the holes were made I used black pipe cleaners and threaded them through the holes. This took a bit of patience but once I figured out a good size to make the holes and curving the pipe cleaners a bit it worked quite nicely. I then twisted the pipe cleaner just like a huge twist tie and they are then ready to twist tie to my hedges!

Feel free to use something else other than pipe cleaners- I just happened to have some of these on hand but you could for sure use craft wire, actual twist ties, even string. Get creative and 'use what you've got'. After you have all your twist tie like items attached nestle them into hedges, bushes, small trees or anywhere else they would be creepy. I liked the idea of making them almost hidden so you wouldn't see them right away but these would also look cool on a chain link or picket fence.

 

Here is the hedge- I have actually already hidden the seven skulls within the leaves. Even I can't really tell where they are!

 I put this one near my 'garden of the undead' as sort of a transition skull.

 The rest I hid among the leaves.

 I made sure this one was trick-or-treat-er height. Since they are already hard to spot I don't expect to freak too many kids out but I think it would be a little spooky if they  caught one out of the corner of their eye!

Variations:
-add more skulls throughout the month and have a sign saying 'lost trick-or-treat-ers'
-with some patience you could probably get creative with some lights and add them in the skulls. A couple small holes in the eye sockets and you would have a very creepy Halloween display. Creepy during the day- terrifying at night.