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

Making a paper maché kitchen knife

I made this paper maché kitchen knife prop to go with one of my evil gingerbread people that I made for Halloween 2018!

I actually did another fake knife project several Halloweens ago, but the goal of that project was to create lots of knives very quickly, and I knew they’d be hanging up high enough that no one would get a good look at them, so they didn’t need to be perfect. Read more…

Tiny hand-made crown for my bunny rabbit!

I made this tiny crown for my old blind bunny rabbit, Acide, for this 13th birthday! It was a quick last-minute project and I didn’t take any pics of my steps, but it was really easy; I’ll explain how I made the thing…

I designed the basic shape for the crown on paper and then traced that onto craft foam and cut it out.

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Voodoo skull staff

For our Voodoo Bayou party, my fiancée wanted to design a swamp goddess costume; basically a spooky nature spirit who protects the animals in the swamp and chases meddling humans away. She wanted to carry a staff with a human skull on top with various bones and beads and trinkets hanging off, and I put together this plan to create the staff for her.

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