Since we had already made the Bella's Dream centerpiece (and won the Twilight Centerpiece contest at the San Francisco convention back in February), we wanted to make another scene, this time from Eclipse. The tent scene, with Bella, Edward, Jacob, and Seth (in wolf form) seemed like the perfect choice.
Without a photo of the actual scene (the Eclipse movie wasn't out yet), we worked solely from the book. We needed a tent, a cliff behind the tent, rocks, trees, and snow.
I bought the black base board (made of styrofoam) from a local craft store. I also bought two square grass mats to cover the board. And I bought a set of four small trees, rather than making them myself.
The Tent
It took a while to get the tent. Originally, I bought a doll tent online, but the seller informed me that they no longer had that tent. I looked around for the right-sized doll tent for our centerpiece, but it was really difficult to find one.
Finally, I found a Fisher-Price doll tent at Toys R Us. Unfortunately, the tent could only hold two dolls, so I put Bella and Jacob inside, and made Edward stand outside, looking in at them. (I placed a rock under Edward's foot to help balance him.) Also, there was a Fisher-Price label on the tent, so I made a small Cullen family crest (printed on regular paper) and taped it over the Fisher-Price label.
The Rocks and the Cliff
I found a rock-making kit at the local craft store. It included a small bag of plaster, rock molds, a cup and stick to mix the plaster with warm water, paints, and a sponge-brush. It took about 2 hours for the plaster to dry in the molds. The plaster rocks came out of the molds fairly easily, but a few of them broke. That was okay with me, because they just looked like broken rocks!
I used the paints and sponge-brush to color the rocks. It really helps if you follow the instructions exactly, starting with the lightest color first, then sponging on the darker colors. The final rocks looked quite real!
Twi-K came up with a great idea for the rocky cliff. We took some newspapers, fashioned them into a cliff shape, then taped it together. Then we took some plaster-infused gauze, dipped strips of it in warm water, and wrapped the wet gauze around the newspaper cliff (like wrapping a broken arm in a cast.) It took a while for the plaster to dry, so we put the project into the oven (at 200 degrees F) for a few minutes to help it dry faster.
I took the leftover paint from the rocks and painted the cliff to match the rocks.
Setting Up the Scene
We set up the tent on the board first, then positioned the cliff behind it, then the rocks and trees around it. After we knew how much space we needed on the board, my husband cut the styrofoam board to fit our scene.
The tent came with a lantern and a cute campfire, complete with marshmallows on a stick! We included these items to help the scene look more "camp-y".
The book mentioned that Bella took a cold drink of water from a canteen beside the tent door, so my son built one using his LEGO blocks.
The book also mentioned that Seth, in wolf form, kept watch near the woods, lying on a bed of pine needles. I happened to have real pine needles left over from our Bella's Dream centerpiece, so I used those and placed my wolf figurine on them.
My husband had some small, battery-operated camping lights, so we placed two lights inside the tent to help illuminate it, and two more lights around the centerpiece. I remembered that the Ballroom in San Francisco was fairly dark, and it was difficult to see some of the centerpieces, so I wanted to make sure our centerpiece was well-lit.
As a final touch, Twi-K provided some artificial snow to sprinkle around our centerpiece. The snow was fairly messy to clean up, so I didn't put any on the centerpiece until we actually set it up at the Ball. The snow added a nice finishing touch to the centerpiece, like powdered sugar on a fancy dessert.
Because we were going to fly to LA for the convention, the entire centerpiece had to fit in my checked luggage. So, instead of attaching/gluing the centerpiece together, we packed up each of the parts and placed them carefully into my luggage (even the styrofoam board). I'm happy to say that nothing broke on the flight to LA! (Thanks, Southwest Airlines.)
If you're making a centerpiece for a Twilight convention, be sure to arrive early at the Ball to set it up. We carried everything down from our hotel room and set it up as the Hillywood hosts walked around and checked out the centerpieces.
Everyone seemed to like our centerpiece, and even though we didn't win the competition this time, we had lots of fun making it and sharing it with our Twilight friends.
I like the snowy effect. It gives me the feeling that they're actually in a snowstorm!
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