Conjuring up the spirit of Halloween

While in California earlier this year, I visited a wonderful antiques store, Blackman Cruz Workshop, in Los Angeles. There I saw incense burners made of bronze in the shape of bats, and a lone claw foot from an old bathtub that was being used as a paperweight. When I saw these items, my mind turned to Halloween.

My magazine's decorating director, Kevin Sharkey, loved the idea of a fancy, glittery, eerie, somewhat macabre holiday decorating scheme for my house in Bedford, N.Y. A giant glass cheese dome formed the perfect display case for green-glittered plastic skulls and bones when set atop a very large cake stand. A silver-glittered hand became a bony place-card holder.

At the California Cactus Center, I'd found an old lady cactus. Six of them proved to be perfect as a mysterious and smoky filler for a cauldron centerpiece made from those clunky bathtub claws and ball feet, the pots shrouded by dried Spanish moss. The bat-shaped incense burners became vessels for dry ice and smoldered in a doorway.

I fashioned leaves from green silk taffeta and paired them with silver-painted pumpkins on my hallway table. Antique glass jars can be used to display candy. A further surprise: glittered orange insects climbing on the pumpkins.

Glittered skeletal parts

1. Cover work surface. With a craft brush, apply tacky glue to half of a skull or bone.

2. Hold object over a large, shallow bowl filled with ultrafine opaque glitter. Spoon glitter over glued surface, making certain the glitter falls into all crevices and sockets. Place on a tray. Repeat. Let dry for at least 1 hour.

3. Tap or brush off any excess glitter. Repeat gluing and glittering on uncoated surface of each piece, touching up as necessary.

Shimmering pumpkins

1. In a ventilated area, coat pumpkins with silver floral spray.

2. With a craft brush, paint stems with green acrylic paint.

3. Brush plastic toy insects with tacky glue, and coat with orange ultrafine opaque glitter.

4. Attach bugs to pumpkins using a hot-glue gun or poster tack.

FOR THE LEAVES:

1. From a 1/2-yard piece of green silk taffeta, cut out three 6-inch squares, three 7-inch squares, and three 10-inch squares.

2. Fold one large taffeta square in half. Lay the large leaf template (available at marthastewart.com/pumpkinleaf) along the fold. Pin to fabric, and cut out. Repeat with remaining squares, using smaller templates for smaller squares.

3. Snip cloth-covered floral wire into 45 9-inch pieces, and separate into nine sets of five wires. Wrap a set with floral tape, beginning 3 inches from the top of bundle if you're making a small leaf, 4 inches for a medium leaf, or 5 1/2 inches for a large leaf. Tear tape. Splay the wires at top to create "veins."

4. Apply glue to one side of splayed wires, and press against leaf. Let dry. (If wires extend over leaf edge, trim after glue has dried.)

5. Shape leaf with your fingers.

FOR THE TENDRILS:
1. Brush an 18-inch length of floral wire with tacky glue; sprinkle with chartreuse glitter. Let dry.

2. Coil wire around a pencil, leaving about 4 inches of wire straight at one end.

3. Using floral tape, wrap "tendrils" onto leaf stems. You can create a vine by joining the stems with floral tape, or simply arrange the leaves beneath the bases of the pumpkins.

4. Affix crystals to leaves with tacky glue.

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Magazine. Questions should be addressed to Ask Martha, care of Letters Department, Martha Stewart Living, 11 W. 42nd Street, New York, N.Y., 10036. Questions may also be sent by electronic mail to: mslletters@ marthastewart.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime telephone number. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column; Martha Stewart regrets that unpublished letters cannot be answered individually. For more information on the topics covered in the Ask Martha column, visit marthastewart.com.