Stacked Halloween Blocks (Inspired by Pinterest)

So I've recently been put in charge of a crafting group in my area.  Which is all fine and dandy when you consider I have an extensive knowledge of paper crafting.  But this group thing is kind of throwing me for a loop.  Why?  I asked for input as to what the group wanted to make, and NOTHING was paper crafting.  It was wood... and paint... and metalwork... and other scary things!  But, I decided to jump in with both feet and branch out of my paper world.

One of the projects shared was this:

It was shared from Pinterest. This looked fairly do-able and I decided to take a shot at it.  Here's what my stacked Halloween blocks ended up looking like:

Just a bit different from the original idea, right? ;)  I had no idea what the block on the bottom was- a scarecrow? A witch?  And I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of having two green blocks, so I turned the scarecrow/witch block into a pumpkin and switched places with the monster guy.  I also wanted the eyes to have more personality, since they are the only part of the face.  I have no idea what size blocks were used for the original, so I just did what I thought would be easy- I chopped up a 4x4 into cubes.  Actually, it was a 3.5x3.5.  I had enough people sign up to do the craft that I ended up doing about 25 sets.  Lots of cutting and sanding.

So, lets go through the stack and I'll let you know what I did.

Pumpkin block:
Painted it orange, traced and cut a burlap leaf from the Kiwi Lane Designs Tiny Nature template set, painted a spool with a layer of brown followed by a layer of bright green on top, made a vine out of twine and painted eyes on the front of the pumpkin.  Hot glued the leaf, stem/spool and vine/wire to the top of the block like this:

Mummy block:
Painted a layer of white followed by a layer of cream (Why? Because 2 layers of cream looked to yellow and 2 layers of white looked too bright.), painted eyes, wrapped around a 2-3" strip of gauzy fabric and tied in a knot on the side above the eyes.

Monster block:
Painted it green, spray painted wooden push pins silver, cut hair out of paper and glued to the top of the block as hair, painted eyes and scar.  I used paper because I could not find any black felt in our town ANYWHERE!!  And I looked everywhere I could think of.  But, if you use paper, don't use hot glue!! I did and it has warped the paper and looks awful! I think I'll be replacing it with felt as soon as I can find some again.  Anyone want to send me some? ;)

I sanded the edges of all the blocks for a slightly distressed look (and to help cover up any painting mistakes- sanding makes it look messy on purpose!)  The finished product ended up being about 12" tall, including the spool/stem.

And there you have it!  My first soiree into the world of wood crafting!  Maybe not the first, but I don't think I've done anything in that department for a few decades.  Is there such a thing as a born again wood crafter?  If so, I think I'm in that category! ;)  I really liked playing with paint and blocks. I think I might even do it again!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting!!