I’m a big fan of Little Shop of Horrors, and was inspired to make some sort of man eating plant for a new Halloween Craft. Plus, we had this perfect little jungle-y planter in our house that was just begging for some sort of carnivorous flower head.
Carnivorous Plant DIY: Step by Step Tutorial
This was a trial and error kinda thing, since I wasn’t exactly sure of the best way to do this. I’m going to omit some of the steps I took that were unnecessary and wasted time. Here we go!
Materials:
- Tape
- Scrap paper
- Paste (flour + water)
- Skewer sticks
- 1 pack of beige sculpey (on Amazon here for $9)
- Human teeth (on Amazon here for $8. Note: They take a few weeks to arrive).
- Mod podge (on Amazon here for $3)
- Red acryllic paint (on Amazon here for $1.75)
Step 0: Reference Photos
First step is always to look around to see what other people have done, and get inspired! Also helps you from going too far astray. These are the images I referenced when I was making this:
I loved the weird human teeth in the first image, and the shiny gross texture of the bottom two. Time to begin!
Step 1: Paper Mache Body
Get a couple of skewer sticks, then crumple paper up around it. Crumple a lot at the top for the head, and make a puppet-like mouth shape. Tape all the paper up as you go along.
Then make some paste out of flour and water, and paper mache the outside for a few layers. Let it dry (either in the oven on warm for an hour, or overnight).
Step 2: Sculpey Body
Once the paper mache was dry, I covered it in flesh-colored sculpey. I theoretically could have made the entire thing from sculpey and avoided paper mache all together, but it would have been really heavy and more expensive.
Step 3: Add Teeth!
With a bit more sculpey, add gums and push the human teeth (purchased here) into them. Then, bake the sculpey according to the instructions on the package. Afterwards, you can use a little bit of super glue on the inside of the mouth to make sure the teeth stay in (optional).
Step 4: Red, Wet Mouth
Mixed a bit of high-gloss mod podge with some dark red paint. It will look pink, but don’t worry. It dries red. Then coat the inside of the mouth, and paint a little bit on the teeth around the bottom. Grossssss.
Step 5: Tongue
Use more sculpey to make a silly tongue. Then attach it to the mouth (using sculpey or glue). Use more of the red paint/mod podge mixture to coat the tongue and let it dry.
Finished Product!
