# HUGE Mushroom props.... Alice in Wonderland



## monty1269

The wife and I were getting a little silly one night and we happened to watch the movie...and yea... next thing ya know, we're planning the yearly party and working it into halloween. So no monster lab with boiling children and daddy eating the glowing green goo stuff.....not this year. SO, we're going "Alice in Wonderland... a HAUNTED "wonderland" ... <insert evil laugh>

Any idea how to make GIANT mushrooms???? I mean HUGE.. about 4-6 feet in diameter.

We were thinking to use umbrellas for the structure, and then use a bunch of paper, or cheap fabric for the underside of the mushroom cap... but the "stalk" needs to be proportional to the cap....so thinking chicken wire to make the shape , but then how to get that smooth look of a mushroom.. Yes we're gonna paint them crazy colors and light them with LEDs and LED spotlights.

These are going outside too....

Any ideas!?!?


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## Dark Angel 27

ah! another kidred spirit. I'm also doing Alice in Underland theme for my haunt this year and Nixie is doing one also. I've also played with the idea of greating ginormus shrooms. I have no idea how to do it , so i'll be watching your progress!


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## RoxyBlue

It won't be the cheapest route, but what about using a large round trash can as the base for your mushroom, with an umbrella cap?

Making a base out of chicken wire or rolled cardboard would definitely be more ecomonical. You might not have to worry about making the base look too smooth, either. It could easily have a more woody looking texture since this is, after all, a mutant mushroom


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## DarkLore

My thoughts on giant shrooms was a bit different. I'd look for large sono tubes (used for making cement pillars) to make the stem. For the top, divide the mushroom into slices...sort of like looking down on it and envisioning a clock. Using cardboard, make a series of fins circling the top. You might be able to get away without surfacing...presuming nothing heavy needs to rest on top.

I believe there's a thread about making a large cauldron in a similar manner.


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## Bone Dancer

http://www.stolloween.com/?page_id=4017

Here is a link to Scot's new pumpkin design . It could be turned upside down and make a good cap.


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## nixie

Great ideas! 
I'll tell you this much for the mushroom tops: Don't cut a circle from wood and spray great stuff all over it like you're making a soft serve ice cream cone, wait for the great stuff to expand, then shape it and paint it. That's what I did last year to make my giant mushrooms. It ended up costing roughly $80 for three mushrooms and it didn't work, the foam never stopped expanding, and the mushrooms never stopped cracking. I'm trying to redo them this year, but I haven't decided how I'm going to go about it just yet. Maybe I'll try some of these ideas.
Good luck and have fun with your haunt!


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## Bone Dancer

Nixie, that idea might work but you would have to do it in single layers and allow the GS to cure for a day between layers. I would think it would be ok for doing smaller mushrooms like about 12 inches in diameter, baby shrooms.


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## nixie

BD- Thanks for the advice. This was my first great stuff project, and it turned me off to using it again. I just piled it all on at once, and it didn't work out to well. My mushrooms were probably about 24"-30" in diameter. I was bummed because I could think of about a million things I could use GS for if I knew I could get it to work.


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## Lilly

well depending on the size you could make them out of plaster and use a large mixing bowl for the tops.. ( i have a huge metal one)
the bottoms find a bucket and fill it with plaster also heavy and lasting
(or even that ready crete would work)


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## monty1269

nixie- Dont get discouraged... GS is AWSOME!!! You will be surprised how much you can do with it! I love it for guts! 

Lilly, I'm aiming a bit LARGER... like 6' diameter, MINIMUM on these. 

I like the cardboard idea, but I'm worried about the weather issue i.e. wet/humidity here in Florida. Any idea how to waterproof 'em?? or another material???


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## Toktorill

We we did large (4' Diameter) mushrooms for a trippy scene, we made a frame out of cardboard with a smaller circle on the top and a larger one in the middle, and covered everything with plastic tablecloth. A little bit of spray paint to liven things up. That's the ultra-cheap (and cheap looking!) route.


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## Jaybo

Large = expensive. How much you willing to spend?

Build a frame for the stalk out of wood and chicken wire. Build the top like Dark Lore suggested, but use thin plywood instead of cardboard. Drape chicken wire over the top of this also.

Now, you have a couple of options. You can use burlap and monster mud to coat everything and save a little money, but the prop will be extremely heavy and prone to chipping. Not a big deal, it is easy to repair.

The other thing you could do is burlap and spray foam, which is basically a large version of Great Stuff. You can do it with Great Stuff also, but it will be pretty expensive. After the foam cures, get in there and carve, sand, and shape the foam to your hearts content. Once you have it looking like you want, you will want to protect the foam. You can purchase foam hardeners such as Foam Coat to help protect your foam. You can even use the cheap generic Liquid Nails type adhesive and smear it all over your prop to help protect it. This is one of the techniques they use at Haunted Overload to build their LARGE props.

This kid below used their technique to make a smaller version of a pumpkin for his High School Senior Project.


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## trentsketch

I think chicken wire is the way to go with this project. Create a wood base for the structure: four to six legs as tall as you want the mushroom stem, screwed into a large circular cut of wood as wide as you want the mushroom cap, then topped off with four to six pieces of wood cut to angle off the top of the circle to the tip of the mushroom. Cover the wooden legs by wrapping the chicken wire around and stapling into the legs. For the cap, cut the chicken wire long enough to go all the way over the mushroom cap, with enough excess to float a little underneath the wooden circle for the rounded look. Staple each piece underneath the circle, on the outer edge of the circle, and along the top for extra support. Overlap the chicken wire until the entire cap is covered. Then you can fiddle around with additional shaping by bending the wire.

For a smooth look, cover the mushrooms in brown packing paper and masking tape. Then, papier mache or monster mud over the entire form to your liking, seal with a waterproofing finish, basecoat with outdoor latex paint, and you're good to go on decorating the mushrooms.

At least, I think this would work. I haven't built a giant mushroom before, but I did build a giant venus flytrap using a similar methodology. If you can't do the wooden circle, you could get away with the pink insulation board for the circle. That's what I did for my sun dial last year. You would just need to push the legs and top support into the circle and glue them in, as well as stab the chicken wire into circle and support with duct tape underneath.

I'm about to leave for work, but I can draw up some diagrams later to better explain the build process if you'd like.


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## shar

I really like your umberella idea, especially if it were a patio umberella or golfing umberella and you could also use the patio stand itself with chicken wire bulking as you mentioned.


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## BioHazardCustoms

How about using something like a three legged table, like the little ones you can buy at Hobby stores, and building a chicken wire top and spraying Great stuff onto that? Wrap the legs with cardboard, or something to that effect.


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## monty1269

I'm cruising the streets on "trash-day" to see if people are dumping their patio/beach umbrellas.......


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