11. Grow Your Own Zombie

Oh yes, it's Zombie Time! Who doesn't love zombies? Well, now you can (sort of) grow your own little pot zombies.

You will need

A polystyrene hand

Acrylic gel medium/Mod Podge

Black tissue paper

2/3 different green paints

Flesh coloured paint (I used a Posca pen)

Black and red paint pens or markers (again, I used Posca pens)

Crackle Accents

A plant pot (mine was 12cm diameter)

Graveyard silhouette cut out (mine was a Quickutz border cut from black card, optional)

Take your polystyrene hand and cover it with acrylic gel medium (or Mod Podge), and scrunched up black tissue paper. Be sure to make the tissue paper nice and wrinkly, and add a few lumps and bumps too. Cover the tissue paper with another layer of gel medium and leave to dry. Now, go and wash all the black off your fingers! When dry, cover with a mix of two or three suitably zombie green paints and leave to dry.

You can see that I missed some bits so some of the black shows through - this is fine. Note the lumpy bits too.

Once the green is dry, lightly go over some parts with the flesh colour. Don't cover the green, it's more like giving a hint of decomposing flesh!

Add some wounds, especially over those lumps and bumps. by adding a small splodge of red and then roughly outlining in black. Immediately add crackle accents just to the wounds - this will make the red and black run into each other. Leave to dry for longer than you think. You should end up with something that looks a little like this. Note to self - do not put it in the soil before taking the photo, otherwise bits of soil will get everywhere!

Now, because the hand is polystyrene, use your thumbnails to press into it where the knuckles would be, and also around the edge of the hand's nails to emphasis them. Outline the nails in black and again, add your crackle accents straight away and leave to dry.

One you're happy with the way your hand looks, all you need to do is place it in your plant pot and add a little potting soil around it.

I decorated my pot by painting it black and adding a graveyard border around the top, but you can leave it plain or decorate however you like. Et voila - grow your own zombie. It looks a little different here, but my camera loves to show off its flash, even in full daylight!

By the way, if you don't have house room for a full sized zombie plant, you could make a mini one with a doll's hand (bye bye Barbie!) and a mini plant pot.

I have entered this in the Corrosive Challenge Blog for Halloween and the Altered Eclectics Challenge..

Have fun, and come back tomorrow for more from the lovely Jas.

Bex

P.S Winners of the giveaway for matchbox monsters are:

KarmaCraft
Jill
Sue Jones
Gill Parry
Amy Wood
Irene Boothroyd

Congratulations - email your address to rebecca.mclean@gmail.com and I will post to you as soon as possible.