Make a Kraken in the Garden

In Norse mythology, colossal, squid-like creatures with terrifying tentacles pulled down entire ships and their crews to watery graves. Stories from mariners as far back as the 13th century describe encounters with massive sea creatures that may may have been inspired by sitings of giant squid. But even today we have barely explored the depths of the ocean, so who knows what might be lurking deep down in the sea?

Or luring under the soil in my garden?

This Halloween yard art was inspired by my son's creation of a 'drowned diver' costume.

1. Chicken wire for the armature. I used 2 rolls of 2 In. x 24 In. H. x 25 Ft. L. Hexagonal Wire Poultry Netting.
2. Material in 3 colors for the underside and topside of tentacles and the suckers. Because Krakens are not real (probably) you can choose whatever colors you like. I went with purple for the topside, lavender for the underside, and a nice deep red for the suckers. I thought these colors also looked nice with the echinacea in bloom in the garden. I bought the cheap polyester pre-cut stuff at Walmart.
3. I ended up using about 8 yards of the purple, 6 of the lavender and 3 of the red.
4. 2 plastic solo cups and aluminum foil for the Kraken eye sockets.
5. 2 LED puck lights for the Kraken eyes.
6. Wire wreath form for the Kraken mouth.
7. Christmas icicle lights make great scary Kraken teeth. Yes, I know giant squid don't actually have teeth, but this is my imagined Kraken, because Krakens (probably) are not real.
8. Spray glue. About 3 cans. Scotch Spray Adhesive works well. Do not use Tacky Spray- see below.
9. Hot glue for attaching the suckers.
10. Poles to mount the tentacles. I repurposed old bamboo garden stakes that were about 4ft tall.
11. Optional- LED string lights and pool noodles if you want your tentacles to light up.
12. Gloves. Chicken wire is pokey.
13. Wire snips.

1. Unwrap the wire. The chicken wire roll is packaged with a length of thin wire wrapped around that you have to unwind. Save this wire! Unrolling the wire is a bit tricky; it is helpful to have an assistant standing on one end as you unroll it over the ground.
2. Cut the wire into varying lengths for different heights of tentacles. Mine ranged from about 6 feet to 2 feet. I did manage to get 8 tentacles and leave about 2 feet for the head out of the total of 50 feet of wire.
3. Roll the wire into the tentacle tubes. The 24" width of the wire makes just the right size. Snip some 1 inch pieces from the packaging wire to use to fasten the long sides of the tube together.
4. Scrunch up one end of the tentacle to make the pointed top, then bend and twist the rest to look 'tentacle-like'. I put these on some metal fencing stakes during the construction process.

I took a 'paper mache' approach to covering the armatures with the material.

1. Strip the material into about 6 inch wide strips.
2. Start with the underside color (lavender) and spray the glue on the top of one side of the material and then press it down the chicken wire, spraying the material as you go.
3. The topside is done in horizontal strips. Spay glue on one edge of the material strip, and starting at the bottom of the tentacle wrap it around the tentacle, cut it to length, then glue the other edge down. Lay the next strip above the first, slightly overlapping the first, working up the tentacle.
4. Don't worry about it being super neat; it will look fine from a distance.
5. I DO NOT recommend "Tacky Spray". I tried it as a cheaper alternative to the Scotch adhesive, but it left a white residue and did not seem to be at all tacky as the material fell right off.

This is the one bit of sewing involved.

1. Cut the red material into strips of about 4" X 6". Fold the strip lengthwise, then use some heavy thread to create a gather along one edge using a running stitch.
2. Stitch the short ends of the material together to join it into a round shape. It looks kind of like a flower actually.
3. Use hot glue to press the gathered ends of the suckers onto the tentacles, flattening them out a bit. The spray glue will not hold them, but the hot glue works very well.
4. The tentacles might grab your surrounding yard sculptures, like the poor plastic flamingos.

I had a vision of glowing tentacles. At first I just put some string lights inside of them, but the individual lights showed through too much an made them look 'polka dotted'. So I wrapped some tiny lights around the stakes, and slid the stakes inside of pool noodles that I then put the tentacles over. This kind of worked. Frankly there is probably a much better way to do this that you can think up.

1. Use the remaining piece of chicken wire to shape into a conical head.
2. Wedge the two solo cups in to hold the puck lights for the eyes. I went around the edges with some aluminum foil to thicken them to make them look more 'eye sockety'.
3. Cut a hole in the mesh and fit in the wire wreath for the mouth. This provides a support to hang the icicle teeth on.
4. Cover the head in strips of material in a similar process to the tentacles.
5. Clip the icicle lights to the inside of the wire wreath (good thing they are already selling Christmas lights at Halloween), and place the puck lights in the eye sockets.
6. I had some strings of purple and green LED lights on hand, so I added them around the head for extra effect.

Here is the Kraken with the drowned diver, and also his friend the plague doctor who maybe doesn't fit with the theme but was enthusiastic about being in the picture. I guess they don't teach mythology in school anymore because only one dad identified it as a Kraken, but at least most kids came up with 'octopus' or 'squid', although I also had one kid call it a jellyfish.