What's This? Nightmare Before Christmas Figurines

I don't really decorate for Halloween; the most I usually manage is a pretty Fall wreath and maybe a pumpkin or two by the front door. (All my efforts go toward decking the house out for Christmas. [Can't wait!])

Last week I finally did a little Halloween craft, though, so now at least I have this!

You like? I just put this together last night. It's always fun ransacking the house to find little doodads to make a new tabletop vignette. (The flower is a napkin ring. Hee.) And I always considered The Nightmare Before Christmas more Halloween appropriate, anyway.

The figures are the only new bits, and are the result of another of my painting projects. I hope it's not too obvious anymore, but they're actually soft rubber bath toys:

I bought these over a year ago at a Disney clearance outlet for $5.99. I immediately knew I wanted to try aging them with paints, but it's taken me this long (and my relative success with Donatello) to finally get down to trying.

Here's a pic in the light cube, so you can see the detail better:

And here's the dramatic before-and-after of Oogie Boogie:

Before you could barely see all the great texture he had. Not the burlap weave and stitches really pop:

Most of this was simply putting paint on and rubbing it off again, although the soft rubber proved especially challenging on Zero:

The paint soaked in and wouldn't wipe completely off again, so I just went with the extra grungy look and did my best to soften it. (I also painted in the black gaps under his ears & changed his collar from pink to red.) Now Zero is actually my favorite; the finish reminds me of the Armani figurines at Disney I love, which have a matte, soft look to them.

Not much more to tell, so here are a few more before-and-afters (I'm still kicking myself for not taking "before"s of Sally and Zero) and finished photos:

For Jack I had to repaint his suit gray, and then age it down with black paint. I also cleaned up the paint lines around his hands.

It's definitely a dirtier, creepier look, but we can get away with that for Halloween, right? (Right?)

Oh, and the rubber toys were really sticky right out of the package - not sure why - and even after cleaning and painting they still have a tiny bit of a tack to them. I'm going to test a few different kinds of matte clear coat to see if any will take the stickiness away. I'm guessing an oil-based spray should do the trick, but if any of you have a suggestion, please let me know in the comments!

And that's it! I hope these gave you a smile, and that you never look at bath toys quite the same way again. ;)

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P.S. - Just so you know: you guys are amazing. All of you. Thank you for all your comments and e-mails and tweets and messages of support regarding my post yesterday. I promise to always strive to bring you as much joy and support and sincerity here on the interwebz as you bring to me. I don't think I'll ever quite manage it, but I'll happily spend my days trying!