Halloween Hutch

My mini pumpkins and little hooters were a big hit last year. Many people bought them, and even more people loved them. I had to wonder what would have turned the loving admirers into buyers.

One thing that seemed to perplex people was where they would put it or how to display such a tiny figure. My immediate solution was to turn some of my little hooters into Christmas ornaments. This worked well.

But it didn't solve the problem for people who would have bought multiple figures if - again - they knew how to display them once they got them home (more than one person - some clearly joking, some half-serious - wanted to take home part of my display for the table).

Thus the Halloween Hutch was born. I've made two so far, experimenting with how they should look.

Each one stands just under 5 1/2 inches. All the items with the exception of the little hooter are secured in place on their shelf. The drawers don't slide very well, but if someone wanted to keep rings or other items in the drawer, they could easily take out the moss.

I've wanted to start creating more small figures for a while (like the skulls and the ghosts), but I knew that I'd run into the same problem of practicality. The cool thing now is that I can spend time making a bunch of different tiny critters if the mood takes me.

Something I learned: sculpting human skulls does not come naturally to me. I spent hours carving out skulls just to roll the polymer clay back into a ball and start again. I probably made 17 skulls. I only baked 4 of them, and of those, only 3 are something I'd show to people.

Hope you like them!