Making a Shrunken Applehead Tree

  

This was a fun project. I actually did it in August so that the apples could age.

Take apples and peel them. Mix lemon juice and salt and soak them about 15 mins. 

Remove and start carving out the faces. The best way to go about this is make deep holes for mouth and eyes and then carve away the dimple above the nose, the sides of the nose, the cheekbones, and any wrinkles or hollows.

Soak them again, this time for 45 mins to an hour.

I pulled an old bush out of the yard and when I saw the root ball, I had to cut it off. It looked so dastardly!

I put it into a vase and took wire and ran it into the apple heads, wrapping it around the root and set it aside to age for the coming months to Halloween.

Here it is a few weeks later - 

Inspired by nostalgia and making shrunken apple heads, I decided to make a line of sculptured clay ones.

I balled up some tin foil and put the oven-bake clay around it to make the heads, baked them, and painted, then sealed them with a lacquer.