Hello, Internet. Do you remember Frank?
Frank is the giant spider that I made three years ago. He's still going strong, for what it's worth. Every year on his birthday Frank gets a little spray foam to touch up any bumps and bruises, and a little black spray paint to make sure he's just as handsome as he was the day he was born. Frank is amazing.
And now he has a new friend. Meet Matilda.
Matilda is a six-foot tall man-eating plant. She is GLORIOUS.
She too is primarily made out of PVC, foam, and spray paint, which I suppose makes her Frank's sister? They're definitely related.
But while Frank doesn't have a mouth, Matilda is full of bite.
I built Matilda in ten minute increments over the course of two weeks, so I didn't do a great job of documenting how it's done. That said, if you're the crafty type, I can give some hints.
- The center stem is a 2" PVC pipe. There are three other stems made from 1/2" PVC. I used the same strategy for bulking up that PVC as I did for Frank - spray adhesive, beat up burlap, and spray foam. This is my preferred spray foam, but buy it locally because it's a lot less expensive that way.
- The flowers are from JoAnn's. There are, obviously, foam balls hot-glued into the middle of each one with a hole cut for the plastic vampire teeth. I did learn an important lesson on this part - spray paint + foam is no bueno. I figured out to use a foam primer after melting a few balls and things went much better after that.
- The big center flower is made by using a T-joint at the top of the 2" PVC. Then I poked a spotlight through the hole so that it's facing forward, bulked things up all around with a lot of spray foam, and stuck a fishbowl on the front of the whole thing. Frosted spray paint makes the glass still see-through, but cloudy, so Matilda lights up quite nicely at night. The enormous petals are from tearing apart an oversized-artificial rose. Unfortunately, the only place I could find an oversized flower was Hobby Lobby, but I did use a coupon, so hopefully they don't manage to spread too much hate with the $3 profit I probably left them.
So, that's Matilda. Isn't she lovely? And the best part is I have already figured out my next friend that I'm going to build out of PVC and foam. He's going to be MAGNIFICENT. Next year. I can't find his head this year, so he'll have to wait.
As a matter of fact, yes, I am indeed building a PVC/Foam kingdom. It's the best.