Pumpkin Tea Light Holder Day

For 2 past October months I had been searching for something like this but couldn't find it (I have to note, Halloween isn't a big thing yet in the Netherlands, though it's slowing gaining popularity). So this year I decided to make one myself

My method, in case you got inspired: I took 3 styrofoam balls (6, 8 and 10cm), cut off tops and bottoms and glued the lot together (deliberately a bit crooked). I then covered it in a thin layer of corn yellow Fimo clay (yay pasta machine) because I had a feeling this would look better once a candle was lit inside. I added a second layer in tangerine orange and on top of that strips of the same orange to add extra thickness and create more shape and grooves (which I smoothed out to get that pumpkin look).

Now the tricky part, cutting out the faces. Googled for some examples, did some things of my own and using a sharp hobby knife did some free hand cutting (no room for errors, yikes). Time for the first trip to the oven.

I split the holder in two while the clay was stiff but still warm, to remove the styrofoam. Glued the lot back together and added some clay to hide the seem. Added a rim inside to secure future tea lights. Another trip to the oven to make the repares more firm.

Last thing to do was add the vines and leaves (to break the orange a bit) and bake it one last time and there you have it. It took me about 2 days. I'm not sure using actual tea lights would be safe as Fimo gets softer when it gets hot again, but a LED-tea light works pretty good as well (thanks to my yellow I reckon). I may just add a matt varnish to add a little bit of sheen but basically it turned out the way I wanted it too