It All Comes Together

The Unveiling of my Halloween Display

I have 2 last projects to share before the final unveiling.  I was chatting with my sister about the large number of rosettes (cut from the Artiste cartridge) I have left over from my previous posts.  She had an AWESOME suggestion.  Make prize ribbons!!!

Given a little more time, I would have loved to have made them for "events" such as:

Broom Obstacle Course Races

Most Artistic Head Shrinking

Best in Show Spell Casting

and so on.

Of course, I've got to get on to Christmas projects, so time to move on, lol!

Anyway, here they are:

The last project is a quickie invitation for the party:

I made a super quick and easy invite using the new Artfully Sent Cartridge.  Honestly, this was a last minute thought, and literally took moments to make.  I cut it at 5 x 7.  The insert is not part of the cut, so I just took a piece of  Canary card stock at 4.75 x 6.75.  I used the stamp set that came with the cartridge to stamp "you're invited to a party" and Happy Halloween

As you can see I quickly scribbled the "invitation".  Of course, if I were creating a "real" invitation, I would most likely have done something up on the computer, but for today's purposes, this will work.

 Bwahahahaha!

OK, Here it is, the final unveiling!

Supplies Used:

Artiste cartridge (rosettes)           Z1790

Scaredy Cat Paper Pack                 X7185B

Glitter Paper     Black and Grey         Z1829

                                 Green                  Z1847 

                               Purple                  Z1992

Glamour Lower Case Alphabet               D1522         

                              

Artfully Sent cartridge                  Z3017

Black Card Stock                        1386

Canary Card Stock                       X5772

Treats for the Halloween Party!

Cut Above Halloween Treat Bags

These treat bags are a super cute little party favor for your guests, but could also be a fun item to give the "special" trick or treaters that might ring your door bell.  You receive everything you need to make these adorable treat bags.  The only addition I made was the hand stamped greeting on the top of the bag.  I used a cute coordinating stamp set that also works nicely with the Christmas Cut Above Treat Bags.

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Here's a picture of everything that comes in the Treat Bag Set

I arranged mine in a cauldron as part of my Halloween Party Display.  I thing they are absolutely adorable!

Cupcake Toppers

OK, I guess I could have cut the skull and cross bones a little smaller, but honestly,  I think these turned out so cute, I plan to use them as some other type of decorating after the cupcakes are gone.  I cut them from the Artbooking cartridge at 5" high by 3.77" wide, from silver glitter paper.  I have a package of lollypop sticks in a Halloween print, so I grabbed them.  I used some acetate (I save the packaging the cricut cartridges come in) that I cut into strips to attach the skull and cross bones to the stick.

As you can see, I took a sharpie marker to draw where I wanted to cut away the acetate so it wouldn't show behind the eye sockets.

Once that was trimmed away, I used scotch tape to attach the acetate to the back of the skull and cross bones.  To get the acetate to hold the lollypop stick, I cut in from the sides to create tabs to wrap around the stick.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of that part, oops!  Anyway, I bent the acetate around the stick and, once again, used tape to hold it in place.  To cover the tape and decorate the area, I used a small piece of black shimmer trim.

The only thing left to do is to stick it into a cupcake! 

Don't forget the Potion Bottles!

I made my labels using the Magic Potions stamp set and ran them through my little Xyron sticker maker to add adhesive to the backs of the lables.  I dug up a few bottles and slapped the lables on.  For the picture I added a few drops of food coloring to water, but I didn't stir it up, I let it swirl in the bottles and lab beaker. 

That's it for today!  Tomorrow I will have the final post for my Halloween Party Display.  I really love the way it has all come together!  Be sure to check back tomorrow!

Supplies Used:

Cut Above Halloween Treat Bag Kit           Z2058

Sweet Salutations Stamp Set                        B1466

Gypsy Stamp Pad                                        Z2190

Goldrush Stamp Pad                                   Z2123

Artbooking Cricut Cartridge                        Z1906

Glitter Paper  Black and Grey                     Z1829

Shimmer Trim  Black                                   Z1809

Magic Potions Stamp Set                            C1509

Champagne Card Stock                               X5832

Goldrush Cardstock                                       1243

Black Stamp Pad                                        Z2015

Cocoa Stamp Pad                                      Z2111

Super Quick Halloween Decor

Framed Skull

Today I'm sharing 2 REALLY simple projects.  Honestly, I don't think they could be any easier!

The Framed Skull takes very few supplies, and goes together very quickly.  I bought a few styrofoam skulls from Michaels last year with the plan to make a "Spell Book" and to mount a skull to the cover.  I am currently working on that project, but it is a VERY detailed, and complex job and most likely won't be ready to show until NEXT Halloween.  Anyway, my original plan was to use this skull, but it was going to be too large to allow the book to open properly.  I had sliced the back of the skull off to provide a flat surface to glue to the front of the book.  The following picture is actually the skull I ended up using for the book project.  I never took pictures of the larger skull being cut.

There's no magic to this, just slice the back off with a craft knife until it lays flat.

Next, I went through my pile of Thrift store frames to find the size and shape I wanted.  I took an old shipping box and traced the opening to create a backing for the skull to sit on.

I knew I wanted to use something subtle as the background, so as I rummaged through my scrapbook paper, I found this one in my collection of  retired Close To My Heart paper.  Now, I know, a better business person would have chosen CURRENT paper, that would compel viewers to hop over to my website and ORDER, ORDER, ORDER!  That being said, I do have a few more projects coming up using current Close To My Heart products.  But lets be honest, I want my viewers to see my projects and be compelled to try something new.  If they choose to shop my website, AWESOME!  But if not, that's o.k. too. 

I was able to cut the backing close enough to create a tight fit.  Then I popped the backing into the frame and didn't need to do anything else to hold it in place.

The last step was to get some straight pins from my  sewing supplies and I literally "pinned" the skull to the backing.  I pushed 2 pins straight from the back into the top of the skull.  Then I took 2 more and went into the lower jaw area.  Just be mindful that you don't push the pin in so far that it comes out the front of skull.  This wasn't an issue in the forehead area, but I did have to fiddle around a little with the jaw line area.  These had to go in at a slight angle, which I decided was great because now I have holding power from a couple different angles.

Since this complete project weighs next to nothing, I simply used a twist tie to work as a hanger.  I taped it to the back with duct tape.  Not pretty, but no one sees it, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, lol!

Project 2

I've been watching the Headless Horseman series on T.V. and the other night, while watching it on my DVR, I noticed the Horseman's horse has glowing red eyes.  OK, I've noticed it before now, but this time I remembered a book end I have, and thought, hmmmmm, all it really needs is red eyes, and it will look creepy!  

Here's a before picture:

Nothing creepy about it.  But I do think the addition of some red vinyl cut into eyeball shapes makes all the difference.  This project literally took 5 minutes to complete, and that includes digging out my red vinyl, lol!

Here's one last look:

It looks great in the finished display.  What??? Another tease, tee hee!  Keep checking back to see the final display.  I'm so happy with how everything is coming together.

Scarey Fairies

Scarey Fairies in a Jar

I've been wanting to make these fairies for quite some time.  I ended up making 2 versions.  

The first set was made using mini skeletons I purchased from Micheal's.

For the wings, I bought some pretty, organza butterflies from the dollar store.  These were actually in the Christmas decoration section.

I think I bought about 20 of these, simply because we can ALWAYS use pretty organza butterflies for something, right? LOL!

Of course, I had to "distress" them a little to go with the Halloween feel of Scary Fairies.

I had just finished painting another project so I had this jar of very black water, just perfect for painting the wings.

Once they had a chance to dry, I pulled the wings off the body and  grabbed my handy dandy Non Stick Micro-Tip Scissors to basically shred the wings.  Originally, I was thinking about leaving the crystals on the wings, but after I got them cut up, I found that the crystals weighed down the shreds too much, so, off them came.

It looks like the crystals are still attached at the bottom of these wings, but actually, that is just the silvery backing from where the crystals were glued.

As you can see, I really hacked these wings up, lol!  I didn't want the wings to look too "butterfly-ish", if you know what I mean.

The next, and last step was to take one of the skeletons and decide on the positioning of the wings.  Once I was happy, I grabbed my handy dandy hot glue gun and placed a glob on the skeleton.  Once the wings seemed to be attached, I went back and added more glue on top to sort of sandwich the wings in the glue.

And, VOILA!  Scary Fairy!!!

I have this great jar that normally holds bars of handmade soaps in my bathroom and decided it would be perfect to display my scary fairies.  I posed 3 of the fairies inside the jar.  I wanted it to look like something you might see in a Witch's pantry, or something to that effect.  

 Then I used glue dots on the hands of one of the fairies and attached it to the outside of the jar, like he's trying to figure out how to free his buddies.

Version 2 is very similar, but honestly, even easier!

I'm calling these Bat Fairies.  

When I was at the dollar store the other day, I found these Skeletons.  I was really happy to find them because the first set of skeletons I bought at Michaels cost about $5, so to find some for a buck was SUPER EXCITING!!!  (Yeah, I know, I am very easily excited, lol!)

I also found packages of rubber bats, and of course had to buy several packags, haha!

Again, I had to remove the wings, so out came the scissors.

I tried using the hot glue to attach them, but quickly found it wasn't going to work.  I don't know about you, but I have a HUGE collection of adhesives.  I'm not kidding!  I probably buy adhesive (and paint!) like other women buy shoes, lol!!!  Anyway, I grabbed my E6000 and squirted a dollop onto the back and shoulder blades of the Skeleton.

If you've never worked with E6000, let me be the first to warn you that it has a strong odor!  You definitely want to have an open window, and preferably, a fan going when you use this stuff!  It also takes a little time to set, so I used some painters tape to hold them into position while the glue dried.

I'll be honest, I have NO idea how long it actually took to dry.  I got distracted with something else (SQUIRREL! lol) and left them sitting for 3 days, hahahaha!  I really don't think it took more then 30 minutes, but I can't be sure.

And that was all it took!  So crazy simple!!!

I used these little "bat fairies" throughout the display I created on my buffet.  I'll be posting my Halloween display showing all the projects I've been sharing, in a few days.  I hope you'll keep checking back!

Eek!

Halloween Banner

Have you ever had an idea for what should be a very simple project, that somehow, becomes WAY more complicated then you ever imagined it would be?  This banner has undergone at least 3 MAJOR changes before I finally was happy.  Like the saying goes: "Keep it simple, sweety!"  (Though I tend to use unprintable words when talking to myself though!)  

Sooooo, here are the details, just in case you want to make your own "Eek" banner.

The curved banner was cut from the Artbooking Cartridge at 

8w x 9.2h on my Cricut Explore Machine from black cardstock.

The smaller curved banner was cut at 7w x 8.05h from a piece from the Scardy Cat paper pack.

When I layered these 2 pieces, I used Bonding Memories glue because I wanted to give myself a little time to fiddle with the placement.  As you can see, these cuts are not a perfect shadow cut.  For this banner, I really like the fact that the placement is a little more whimsical looking.

The rosette was cut at 10.92w x 2.44h fro the Artiste Cartridge

from another piece from the Scardy Cat paper pack.

I cut the doily from the Artiste cartridge at 3.5w x 3.47h out of black card stock.  I glued it to the center of the orange rosette.

Then I glued the word Eek! cut from silver glitter paper, again from the Artiste cartridge at 5.41w x 2.4h.

I bought this garland at a local little 5 and dime (yes, they still exist, lol!) but I saw them at the dollar store a few days later as well.  I cut the orange spiders off for this project, only because they distracted from the finished project.

I flipped the rosette over and hot glued the garland around the outer edge.  You want to be careful here.  Not only is the hot glue dangerous for a clumsy girl like me, (I have more burn scars then I can count!) but it melts the plastic of the garland, so PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, be very cautious when applying the garland to the hot glue.  I'm sure some other type of adhesive would work just as well, but hot glue is quick and cheap, which are important factors in my decision making process!

When the glue has cooled, and the garland is set, I flipped the rosette back over and glued it to the banner base.  I used a generous amount of hot glue because the rosette has a bit of weight to it, and I wanted to be certain it held tightly. 

I punched holes in the corners to add eyeletts from my stash.  Then I connected the banner pieces with small lengths of Black Striped Twill.  I also used longer lengths on each end to give me a way to tie the finished banner to where ever I decide to hang it.

And that's it!

Supplies Used:

Artiste Cricut Cartridge                Z1790

Artbooking Cricut Cartridge                    Z1906

Scaredy Cat Paper Pack                    X7185B

Black Card Stock                              1386

Black and Grey Glitter Paper                  Z1829

Bonding Memories Glue Pen               Z553

Black Striped Twill Ribbon             Z1988

Be sure to check my "Specials" page for my exclusive offer when purchasing ANY CTMH Cricut Cartridge from my website. 

New update on the "Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch" page.  I hope you check it out!

It's a new month which means:

NEW SPECIALS!!!

Be sure to check out my "Specials" page for all the details.