Ghost Vase

Its never too earlier to start decorations for Halloween! Come along with me as I show you how I created this darling little ghost vase.

I was sitting there thinking about what I could use for base as I was standing in the kitchen. I looked over and saw this Coca-Cola 2 liter bottle and told my husband not to throw it away, I have plans to for it! So here we go...

I started by cutting of the bottom off of the plastic 2 liter by making a slice in it with my exacto knife. 

I decided to use this coke bottle because the bottom had curves so that way I could make the bottom of my ghost kind of wavy. After I made my slice to open up the plastic I continued cutting around my bottle with scissors.

I made sure to clean my bottle out real good before I started the next step.

Next I took some paint stir sticks I had laying around in my craft room that I had cut the top of a while back. These worked great as a template to roll out my clay to get an even thickness. I grabbed my rolling pin and got out my DAS air dry clay.

I measured the width I would need to make my clay into and I taped down my stir sticks to my mat to keep them from moving while I rolled out my clay in between them.

Make sure to get it nice and flat and smooth. Keep edge the rolling pin on the wooden stir sticks so you get the same thickness in the clay.

Next I used my exacto knife and cut along the edges to release the clay from the sticks and make a straighter edge. I made sure to trim the top and bottom of the strips for a nice edge so I could measure hiw long I would need it to be. I removed my strip from the mat carefully without trying to stretch the clay out of form.

I measure my clay around the bottle.

Cut off any excess clay.

I smooth out my seam and went around the clay and smooth out any cracks.

I smoothed out the top rim and then started to make my indentions around the bottom of the clay to make my ghost whispy. I just kind of punched and formed the clay however I wanted. I started by indenting the clay how the bottle was indented and then also made a few extra.

After I got that how I wanted I made sure to go around the clay again smoothing it out and used some water to moisturize it. This also helped me smooth over any cracks and form it to the bottle for a nice snug fit. 

This is what it looked like after I was finished with that. 

Now the ghost needed some eyes. I used my exacto knife to kind of score the clay to draw out the eyes. Once I had them how I wanted I went back and cut out the eyes. 

I took some more water and smoothed kut the edges around the eyes where I had cut.

Now it was time to let it dry. I decided to take a damp paper towel to wrap the clay so it wouldnt dry out too quickly hoping to avoid it cracking a lot. It took about two days to dry completely and surprisingly I didnt have hardly any cracks. The few I found I just smoothed over with some water and moulded the clay back together. 

This is what the ghost looked like after it was completely dry 

At this point I debated on removing the bottle from the inside of the ghost after I gave him a few coats of polyacrylic (to make the clay stronger) or just leave the bottle inside for a stronger vase. I decided to just go ahead and leave it inside the ghost for extra support. I did want my ghost to harden up a little so I decided to give it a coat of polyacrylic. I just painted it onto the clay with a paint brush. I ended up giving it two coats.

I didnt like how the poly gave the clay a yellow hue so I decided to paint my ghost with white chalk paint. You can see the color difference in the photo below. For more depth I decided to take a paper towel and just kind of dab off some of the white paint as I went along.

You can see the splotchy look I got by doing this. I am going give my ghost a vintage look anyways but if thats not the look you are going for than you can leave this step out. 

After you paint it completly seal the paint with another layer of the polyacrylic and let dry completely. After it dried I used some antique wax and painted over my ghost to age it. 

After I completed a small section I took a paper towel and wiped back the wax. The wax will settle into the grooves and any cracks giving a nice aged looked. 

I couldnt get as much of the wax off as I had hope for so using a baby wipe I wiped and dabbed over it again removing most of the wax. 

You can see how it settles into the grooves of the clay for an aged look. 

To give the aging effect more dimension I decided to use some black wax.

I dipped my finger into the wax and kind of smear some of it around the eyes and top and bottom edges of the ghost here and there.

I still wasnt completelt satisfied as the wax didnt seem to pop or be dark enough for what I wanted. So I tried some black chalk paint around the edges. 

I also added some into some of the indentions for a shadowed look. 

I let it dry then styled it with some florals. Its pretty cute! If I make another one I wouldnt make the eyes as rounded, maybe more narrow so he doesnt look as friendy! You styke this in a bunch of different ways: florals, a vase inside, candy, etc. Which ever way you chose it will surely add some ghostly vintage vibes to your seasonal decor!