Witches Cauldron

Earlier I talked about a witches cauldron that I wanted to make.  The post with the awesome tutorial is here.

I had two cauldrons that I got for super cheap, one at Walmart last year for the party last year, and the left one I got at Goodwill for $2.50 or so a few weeks ago.

I followed the instructions on the website, but the tutorial didn't call for sanding or priming the cauldron before painting/slapping the gunk on.  She said that she had to wait a week for her cauldron to "cure".  I really think her problem was that she didn't sand OR prime. I spent a good time prepping my plastic cauldron by sanding (by hand, mind you) then spray painting a primer.  With that preparation, my concoction "cured" just like paint would within a few hours.

I mixed sand that I stole from the Michigan Lake beach with a can of white paint I found in the basement that the previous owners left.  I glopped it on the cauldron, but it the mixture slowly fell down the side and wouldn't easily keep its thick texture.

I went back to the tutorial and found I didn't mixed my concoction with flour to make it thick.  Ah-ha!  I mixed flour in and that fixed my problem.  I was able to re-apply the mixture within three hours to give it more texture.

Then came the fun part: painting!  I tried a light grey paint and dripped watered down white paint down the sides like in the tutorial, but it looked too bland.  I tried a darker grey, but I still wasn't satisfied.  Then I tried different shades of brown and grey, but it looked gross.

How do you like the lighting in my basement?  And especially against my yellow wall?  AWESOME.

I was frustrated that all my attempts didn't look great like I was expecting!  Next I tried mixing dark grey and black and covered up all of my other gross paint from previous failed efforts.

I think it turned out great, finally!  I think I'll try using some twine/thin rope for the handle, then I'll fill it like in the tutorial.  I'm glad it finally turned out - and even throughout all of my experiments it was a super fun project!