Manning Makes Stuff - Halloween decorations, paper mache masks, costumes, party ideas, and more

Manning Makes Stuff - Halloween decorations, paper mache masks, costumes, party ideas, and more

Monster punch bowl and ladle


Published by Manning on October 30th, 2024

My wife made this hilarious thing! It’s huge; about 30″ across and maybe 18″ tall.

A giant blue punch bowl prop with fake pink liquid inside; there's a ladle hanging on the fence next to it and a stack of red cups next to it.

She made the base of the bowl out of foam board, starting with a huge circle and then creating the 3D bowl shape with a bunch of foam board panels. Picture the bowl shape in profile — basically a half-circle — and then slice that down the middle to create a quarter-circle. She traced and cut out 32 of these and then hot-glued them in place onto the circle.

I’m putting this disclaimer on all my Halloween 2024 (Monster Prom) projects: I was in such a panic this year I did not take many progress photos of anything! And the pics I did take are at really random stages. So I’ll dump all my pics for each project near the top, and just write up all my steps below those.

Closer view of the punch bowl; there are eyeballs and bugs floating in it

Close up of the fake liquid with the eyeballs and bugs and stuff

Close up of a fake fish prop that's floating in the fake pink liquid; it has a bite taken out of it

A clear liquor bottle with a label that says Werewolf Vodka with a picture of a werewolf doing a Russian dance with his arms crossed, one leg folded under him and one leg out in front of him.

She then cut out a bunch of narrow triangular shapes to make up the panels that go all the way around the bowl. She hot-glued these in place. She then covered the gaps between these panels with masking tape. She then covered the whole bowl with one layer of paper maché.

When the bowl was dry we spray painted it. We hot-glued all the bugs and stuff right onto the surface. The smaller eyeballs are just those dollar store Halloween eyeball decorations. We cut holes in the surface of the foam board and stuffed ’em right in there, to make it look like they’re floating. The two larger eyes are paper maché; we bought a plastic sphere (which contained Transformers stickers) at the dollar store and just covered it with paper maché and cut it in half then painted the two halves to make two eyes.

I made the dead fish out of foam board and tape and paper maché. Easy.

To make the ladle, I bought a sort of bowl-shaped strainer at the dollar store, and I attached the handle which I cut out of a piece of foam board. Taped everything together, then one layer of paper maché, and then spray paint. Done!

This was a really fun project and it’s my favorite kind of Halloween prop because it was easy/fast/cheap to make, it goes perfectly with our party theme, it’s funny, and it takes up a lot of space and really enhances the ambiance of our party.

One Response to “Monster punch bowl and ladle”

  1. InarticulateQuilter Says:
    October 30th, 2024 at 4:25 pm

    You are both ridiculously talented! And all the clever little details just blow me away

Interested in commissioning a piece from me? Please see my page about custom paper maché pieces. Please email me; don't put your request in a comment below.

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