Easy Mossy Creatures – A Fun Porch Décor Idea

Sometimes when life gets too crazy, it’s good to just take a break and make something a little wacky, but oh so cute and unusual. Like these mossy creatures. They serve no purpose other than to make me smile and add a fun décor element to our porch.

My hubby calls them the loveable grinch cousins, and they are super easy to make.

These little guys are weatherproof so they can be used in the garden too.

Right, before I show you how to make some mossy creatures, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram. And don’t forget to subscribe so you’ll never miss a post!

What you need

• Expanding foam
• Moss
• Coconut fiber
• E6000 or other exterior glue that dries clear
• Wire
• Aluminum foil
• Two polystyrene balls per mossy creature
• Free mossy creature iris printable
• Exterior glossy mod podge
• Plastic sheet to protect your working area

How to make mossy Creatures

The body of the mossy creatures is made from expanding foam. I love the stuff. It’s waterproof and a little goes a long way. We’ve used it to carve a giant key and to give a milk bottle a quirky mushroom top. If you don’t have expanding foam you can use large polystyrene balls instead. Lay a piece of plastic down on a flat surface to protect your work area and spray blob-ish shapes.

Wait a few minutes for the expanding foam to form a crust on the outside and flip the blobs over.

Let the expanding foam blobs cure completely. I left mine overnight. Use a sharp craft knife to carve away any knobs and form the expanding foam.

Paint the blobs brown with ordinary craft paint or spray paint. This step is entirely optional, but it does help hide the strange greenish color of the expanding foam.

Cut two pieces of wire for each blob to suspend the eyes on.

And a third, longer piece for the hat.

Wrap the eye wires in foil and masking tape to bulk them up a little.

Remember to leave about 1” or so at the bottom and top of the wire unwrapped. It makes it easier to insert them into the blob and the polystyrene eyes we’ll be adding in a bit.

Create a curly hat form for the mossy creature by bulking up the bottom of the wire where it goes into the blob with lots of aluminum foil.

Cover the foil in masking tape. The masking tape helps keep everything together and provides a surface that’s suitable for paint and/or glue.

Paint the blob, eyestalks, and curly hat brown. Again this step is optional, but it really does make a difference to the next step.

Life is a great big canvas. Throw all the paint you can on it. Click to Tweet

Once the paint dries apply liberal amounts of E6000 to the hats and glue on coconut fiber.

Cover the expanding foam blobs and eye stalks in the same way, but use moss instead of coconut fiber.

Almost done 😉 We just need to give these little guys some personality 😀 And the easiest way to do that is to add some gorgeous green eyes.

Giving the mossy creatures personality

Make the eyes for the mossy creatures by printing out the free Iris printables and gluing them onto the small polystyrene balls.

To make life easier and stop the polystyrene balls from rolling all over the place while you work, insert a toothpick and pop them onto another piece of polystyrene 😀

Seal the eyeballs with a glossy outdoor mod podge. You’ll find a detailed tutorial on making realistic eyes here. Once the mod podge dries, glue a small amount of moss onto the back of the eyeballs.

Pop the eyes on top of the eyestalks and …….

…… your weird, wacky, cute mossy creatures are ready. Talking about cute; did you see our newspaper moss bunny tutorial?

Place the little guys in a spot where they’ll get the attention they deserve. We’ve put ours on the porch, but they can go in the garden too since the expanding foam is water-resistant.

Both the hat and the eyes on the mossy creatures can be bent to give them a different look depending on your mood 😀

I would love to know what you think of these little guys. Is it something you would make?

And where would you put them?

If you like the idea of making mossy creatures, don’t forget to pin it for later.

Sharing is caring 😉

And if wacky porch creatures aren’t quite your thing then you can make this mossy bunny with bendable ears instead. She is really easy to do and I bet you have everything you need to put her together in your craft stash already.

Oh and if you’re looking for some of the things we used, we’ve got you covered Disclosure: Clicking on the links below, means we may receive a commission from Amazon. But don’t worry it won’t come out of your pocket, and it helps us come up with more amazing craft ideas to share with you 😉

Or if you prefer to buy rather than DIY, then one of these beauties may appeal.

And as always, wishing you a wonderful, crafty week filled with lots of love. Thank you for popping in for a visit.