Time to wrap this project up!  Since I decided to make the bottom of the banana hanger into a maw with teeth then it only seems right that the outside of the ‘mouth’ will need skin, or in this case, scales.  I chose an alligator hide embossed paper in a tan color.  As I much prefer to use supplies I have on hand I didn’t look much farther than the drawer that holds my paper punches, I knew something in there would work for making my scales.  A jagged edge leaf punch will do the trick.  Next I went around the edges with black Archival ink for a bit of depth.

Using a hot glue gun, I glued on each scale in a ring starting at the bottom. Then I went up a row.

And another row, and then I cut off the bottom third of the remaining scales with a deckle scissors to finish off that top row.

Now to fill in the maw.  This is wood wool, I see it in stores around Easter, too, for packing Easter baskets.

Using a couple of Distress Spray Stains in browns – I make this look a little more gnarly.

This is the same wood wool just turned over.  I spritz the bottom side with Distress Black.  I flip it back over before putting it into the maw.

See how I left a few pieces to straggle out over the edges and between the teeth.  Halloween and ‘too neat’ don’t go together in my opinion.  I will also add some more skeleton bits and pieces down on the wood wool – you know, for guys who got out of the cage the hard way.f

I started with three of those 6″ plastic skeletons.  On previous posts I’ve shown how to use flame to bend the joints to animate these guys.  Once I had some personality going with them I used the hot glue gun to add some patches of flesh – that’s right, these guys are still rotting away.

Back to the alcohol ink in Pepper Red using the same technique as I did on the gums.

Placing them in the cage is a bit of a challenge but when I got one piece where I wanted it I kept him there with some hot glue tack downs until I had all three skeletons where I wanted them.

I felt this piece needed a message so I pulled up Word and using an Old English/Pirate font and quote from Dante I made a couple of different arrangements for the sign and then printed it out on an aged parchment craft paper.  Using deckle scissors I cut it to shape and then sponged the edges in Distress inks: Walnut Stain, Old Paper and Black Soot – front and back.  I used a Micro pen in black to scribble on the flourishes, nothing fancy.

I didn’t want the sign to crumple or warp when I hung it so I came up with a couple of braces – attached via hot glue gun.  I also heated a pin and drove holes through the hip balls so I could run wire for hanging the sign using 26 gauge raw wire.

And here it is – the grand finale!

Well, that was fun.  A Halloween trick of taking a banana hanger, bird cage and skeletons and making a decor treat of tortured souls.

Hope you enjoyed the ride – now I have to go make some Witches Parking Signs and you have to go – craft on!