Lately I've been all about Halloween. We decorated inside a few weeks ago and since this weekend marked the start of fall, we decorated outside too. I hit Target for a few essentials like tombstones and spider webs and a really cool door bell with a moving eye ball. The best Halloween decorations for me have always been handmade. When I was little, my mom was the neighborhood Queen of Halloween. She even wrote the book about her love of the holiday in Llewellyn's Little Book of Halloween. She made a life sized coffin that she would stand in with a terrifying Nosferatu mask and jump out to scare the trick-or-treaters. She made a really amazing ghost to hang in our tree with a styrofoam head and a piece of sheer white fabric. Best of all she always made the most amazing Halloween costumes for my sister and I.

Last month while shopping I saw the most amazing Little Shop of Horrors inspired man eating plant decoration. It was about  3 1/2 feet tall and they wanted $159 for it! I posted on Facebook that I wanted to make one and my friend said "Yeah, with $159 worth of supplies!" Crafting can definitely be expensive and sometimes its not worth it to buy all of the stuff and make your own version but I accepted this Audrey 2 on a budget challenge. Here's how I made my own Audrey 2 for just $16 at  Dollar Tree


I see a lot of tutorials that claim dollar store supplies but some of them include things I've never seen at the dollar store in my life. So, with this tutorial the supplies are all from Dollar Tree store with the exception of my hot glue gun. I also already had scissors, electric tape and two wooden dowel rods and some green acrylic paint at home. I have seen all of those things at Dollar Tree in the past but since I already had them, I didn't want to buy them again. I used my daughter's kids paint set for this since I couldn't find my paint box anywhere. I have seen kids paint at Dollar Tree too so if that's what you can find, it works!


Here's what I did buy:

a plastic planter or bin
two blocks of floral foam
a pack of craft moss
two packs of hot glue sticks
various floral picks that look kinda tropical/spooky
a pack of manila mailing envelopes
a sheet of foam core
a pack of purple craft foam
a set of red plastic french fry baskets





Heat your glue gun and cut two envelopes into strips. Crumble the strips up and gently unfold them.





Trim off a little bit of the end of one of your french fry baskets with scissors. The trimmed basket will  be the bottom jaw.

Glue the strips along the top of the baskets

Glue and long strip along the outer edge, making sure to not cover the red lip of the basket because that will be our plant's lips.





Paint the manila envelope strips with dark green paint. When dry, brush over with a lighter green to just accentuate the crinkles of the paper




Cut a foam core section to fit inside each of the baskets. I just traced the shape of the baskets and cut with a craft knife

Cut a matching piece of purple craft foam to cover the foam core. The only purple foam that I could find was sparkly on one side but I just flipped it over and used the plain back.

Glue the foam core and craft foam to the inside of the baskets







Overlap your two wooden dowels and tape them together with black electric tape. Cover the entire dowel





To prepare your planter, stack the two blocks of floral foam on top of one another and set in the middle. Fill around the outside of the blocks with wadded up newspaper or paper from your recycling bin.


Cut a circle of foam core to sit inside the basket. Cut a spot in the middle of the foam core to insert the wooden dowel stem. Cover the foam core with craft moss








Next cut a circle of foam core about 5 inches in diameter. Cut a cross in the center to insert the dowel and glue individual leaves and petals to the foam core to form a ruff of greenery to go around the plant's neck/stem.




Hot glue the top and lower jaw to one another and cut a hole in the bottom of the lower jaw to insert the dowel.  First place the ruff on the dowel, glued at an angle, followed by the head. I also folded a purple rose petal and glued it inside the mouth to make a tongue.





Glue in individual teeth cut from foam core and hot glued in. If you like skinny sharper teeth, you can also pick up a pack of white plastic forks from  Dollar Tree and use the tines as teeth. I used a kitchen sponge to scrape off the extra paint and hot glue along the lips.

Finish the pot by surrounding your plant in foliage of your choice. I also bought some sparkly purple pipe cleaners to stick among the foliage in little springs but I decided I liked it better without. My foliage had little yellow flowers on them but I popped those off for a more spooky vibe.





If you enjoyed this project, please check out my other Halloween projects!