Spooky Owls

I have a thing for owls and the word has gotten out. Last year while Christmas shopping, a reoccuring conversation went something like this:

Me: Aaaw look at the owl [insert any object]!! It's so cute!

Someone else: And you said you don't have a thing about owls?

Me: Nope, I DO NOT have a thing about owls.

Later

Someone else: Look Claire, an owl [insert any object]!

Me: If I had a thing for owls, I would find that very cute.

I wasn't really surprised when I ended up with quite a few owl related items this past Christmas. Everything from a set of owl mugs, to an owl coin purse, owl necklace and a set of owl nesting dolls. A few owl figurines have also shown up in my life and in thinking about what to do for Halloween on a budget I started thinking about my little parliament of owls (and no, I won't admit to having a collection). Not all owls are cute- some are downright sinister:

Pretty spooky, right? but it gets better at dusk:

I mostly used stuff from around the house including the large basket, two apothecary jars, some green Christmas lights and an ostrich egg.

I knew I wanted to create creepy nests in the apothecary jars and once I found the extra large basket I figured I could make an extra large nest to hold everything. I would have used branches and twigs out of my backyard but it had been raining for about a week so I bought a grapevine wreath ( $4.99) and some Spanish moss ($6.99) at Michael's. I tore the wreath apart and wedged pieces of it into the apothecary jars to form a nest which I accented with raffia, torn bits of muslin, feathers and Spanish moss. I also got that paper mache skull at Michaels for $1.99 and loved how it looked so I added that to the jar before assembling the nest.

The tall apothecary jar got a similar treatment and then I started adding some bugs and skeleton hands. I got a pack of snakes from Target for $1.99 and the skeleton hands at Micheal's for $1.99. 

This big guy is a leftover from Halloweens past. His brother is currently residing in the candy jar at my office.
I coiled the green christmas lights around the bases of the apothecary jars and topped it all off with more Spanish moss. I also added some more pieces of the grapevine wreath around the inside of the basket to reinforce the idea of a large nest.

What really brought the whole thing together was this guy. He's so sinister and yet kinda reminds me of my cat....

It's the "wide" haunches.