One of my favorite movies and books of all time is Howl's Moving Castle. So when my son's school had a pumpkin decorating contest in which the theme was to decorate a pumpkin in your favorite book character, I thought of the moving castle from the story. After looking at stills from the motion picture, I resigned myself to throw the idea out because of how complicated it was going to be. Then my husband suggested we make Turnip Head. What a great idea!
K was thrilled at the thought because Turnip Head is one of his favorite characters from the movie and he is fascinated by scarecrows...and we just so happened to have a real miniature pumpkin laying around the house-perfect!
After a trip to Michaels to get black and brown foam we were set to start.
This was a collective effort: My
husband colored the pumpkin white, made the skeleton for the character from wooden sticks,
and added the pipe which was made from a toothpick and leftover foam. K drew the face with a Sharpie, constructed the top hat which was attached with a hot glue gun,
and used felt to make the undershirt and bow-tie. I sewed the jacket and the uni-pant (aka a skirt) using suede remnants from my overflowing stash of fabric.
Needless to say, K was overjoyed!
He walked into school, head held high with Turnip Head at his side.
His only complaint was that the pumpkin would eventually rot.
