To make this charming and eerie tiny graveyard, you will
need: an aquarium, preferably with a hood having a light (this is a great way to
re-use a cracked aquarium, but make sure the bottom two inches will still hold
water); Sculpey bake-hard clay; potting soil; twigs and tiny branches; grass
seed (three tablespoons or so); acrylic paints; and a small paintbrush. If you
wish to add a pumpkin field to your cemetery, you will need some tiny leaves of
artificial ivy, or a couple of small ivy plants having the smallest leaves you
can find. This is the apartment-dweller's answer to a night walk in a real
graveyard.
The first week of October is the time to begin your
Pocket Cemetery, so that the grass is lush and mowable by Halloween!
Inside the aquarium, create a small, Halloweenish landscape all your
own! Pour the potting soil into the aquarium, to the depth of at least two
inches, and contour it to your satisfaction. Uncialle's Pocket Cemetery has a
hill on one side, a two-inch stone wall halfway across, a tiny pond made from a
dish painted black, and a field of pumpkins beyond. The cemetery is on the hill.
The pumpkins appear to be invading the lower part of the cemetery. But do what
looks good to you! After you have contoured your "ground," very gently water it
until the soil is saturated. Now, scatter grass seed thickly on the soil, and
press the seed down gently with the back of a spoon. Do this BEFORE you put in
anything else, or you will have grass seed all over your gravestones! If you are planting ivy as "pumpkin leaves," plant it now, too. Now, let it grow! Simply turn on the aquarium light for 8--12
hours a day, keeping the soil moist. Or, ideally and if it's not frosty out, place the tank outside in your back yard in a sunny spot. If you do this, check it frequently to make sure it isn't drowning from too much rain! You might wish to put plastic wrap over the top during the night and when it is raining.
Once the grass is planted, get out the Sculpey clay and model some tombstones.
Uncialle's Pocket Cemetery is in a tall 25-gallon tank, and her tombstones range
from one to two inches high. You can roll the Sculpey out with a rolling pin
until it's about 3/8" thick and cut out the tombstone shapes with a knife, then
softening and blending the edges with your fingers. With a pin, scratch in some
lines of "engraving." Try rounded and squared-off shapes, as well as
crosses and doves. Bake the tombstones in a 340-degree oven until they turn
uniform brown. When they are cool, paint all with a base coat of white. Then
shade them with various washes and tints of gray, until they look weathered.
Uncialle's Pocket Cemetery has a pumpkin field in one corner, so if you wish to
add this, make some tiny Sculpey pumpkins in scale with the tombstones. Bake
them brown, and paint them first white, then orange (the brown baked-Sculpey
color must be covered up to have the orange look clear and bright). Set the
pumpkins and tombstones aside while you work on the landscape.
By Halloween, your Pocket Cemetery will
have a carpet of fresh, green grass. Wait until the day before Halloween, or the day before your party, to "mow the grass." This is best accomplished with nail scissors! It won't look perfectly even, and this is good. Don't mow several days before your party, because grass can grow an inch in two days.
Then,
insert twigs with side branches, to simulate bare late-fall trees. Uncialle uses
locust-tree twigs about 10" long, because these have extremely fine side twigs,
and a branching habit that makes twigs look like real miniature trees. Last year, she used small hawthorn branches with their tiny red leaves still on them, for an enchanting effect. Next,
insert your Sculpey tombstones into the soil. Remember, sometimes very old
stones lean spookily! Arrange the artificial ivy leaves, and
scatter the pumpkins among them.
This is a project the whole family can work on, or it can be just
for you. It makes the most intriguing party-table centerpiece! Uncialle loves
hers, because it is a place where the imagination can wander freely and safely
into the dark fire of Halloween. Uncialle puts her Pocket Cemetery in the
basement after Halloween. The grass withers, and the artificial "pumpkin" leaves
don't care. Next October, she simply adds water with a bit of dilute liquid
fertilizer, more grass seed, and the cemetery lives once more!
Now for the fun! There are countless things you can add. Go wild
in a miniatures shop! In her Pocket Cemetery, Uncialle has placed a tiny red
wagon with two pumpkins in it, as if a small child had visited, and perhaps run
home, frightened. Two tiny, glowing red LEDs are monster eyes, hiding in the
shadow behind a tombstone. Miniscule black paper bats hang from "invisible"
sewing thread in the tiny trees. A tipped-over vase beside a tombstone spills
out dried flowers, while a miniature white pitcher holds "fresh" flowers. Tiny
stones can create a stone wall. You could even put in a witches' hut, a tiny hand reaching from the ground, miniature people, a goblin, or a mummy going for a stroll! A very creepy addition: bury a very small
(to scale) plastic skeleton under about an inch of soil, right next to the
glass, and place a tombstone in the proper position for it. One final touch: On
Halloween night, Uncialle takes out the standard light bulb in the tank hood and
replaces it with a blue light. Instant moonlight! Have fun, my dear friends, and
haunt your tiny cemetery in your imagination, because that is what Halloween is
all about! 
