Wicked Witch Hat Centerpiece

While searching the interwebs one day, for who knows what, I stumbled upon an image of an adorable witches hat with a floral arrangement on top. I've looked and I haven't been able to find it again. Needless to stay it was stuck in my mind and I wanted to make one for myself. Keep in mind, floral arranging is NOT my strong suit. Funny that when I was a little girl I thought for a while that I might become a florist. But I digress.

I figured the basics for putting the hat together would be pretty simple... a hat, some flowers and other embellishments. I picked up a hat at the thrift store for $1 that someone loved intensely for one halloween and then tossed like a Christmas tree. So special. Then BAM, it's on the thrift store shelf... (ahem, yes, I am altering and mixing in irrelevant movie quotes. back to the scheduled blog post).

To make the floral arrangement :
(1) take a piece of floral foam and cut it into a 5"x4"x1.5" block and then round the top corners to end up with a piece that looks like a half circle.

(2)Then use about a 24" length of black tulle and wrap around the block, covering twice and tie in a knot at the top. This will be used to float throughout the flowers and also functions to thread the decorative ribbon through that goes around the hat which secures the flowers to the hat.

(3) Thread 2.5 - 4" wide ribbon (depending on your preference) through the tulle leaving a short end sticking out of one side (keep it long enough it can be used as part of the decoration), loop around hat and run ribbon through opposite side leaving a small piece sticking out of that side. Tie knot in ribbon under tulle.

(4) Stuff hat with newspaper or bags to keep from collapsing.

(5) Use red, orange and yellow flowers (or your choice) along with branches and other wispy accessories and build your arrangement in the foam. Keep in mind the depth of the hat rim and make sure the flowers you use will not obscure the rim entirely (unlike mine which almost covers the whole thing). Also angle some of the flowers back along the sides to conform to the hat shape help conceal the foam block. Start with the largest flowers and build filling in with the smallest.

(6) Stand back and admire your lovely handiwork. Then find a table or special place to display your beautiful centerpiece. Add mini pumpkins, gourds, skulls, etc to decorate as you see fit.

I've scored a few more hats on my recent trips to the thrift store. Not sure how many I need around my house so you may see some end up in my etsy store (next year)! Have a beautiful Halloween!

Halloween Books II

I've had a request to do another Halloween Book round up and I'm happy to oblige!

The first book "The Dangerous Alphabet" is not so much a Halloween book as it is a creepy tale by one of my favorite authors Neil Gaiman. Follow along as two children and their pet gazelle travel on a journey underground with plenty of trolls, zombies, ghosts and many other strange creatures.

I haven't read these next two, but loved flipping through the pages and just looking at them.

"The Halloween Kid" I love the simplistic color pallet and graphics. It mimics a retro screen print look and evokes memories of days gone by. It is absolutely adorable.

"Ghosts in the House" Again few colors are used and the graphics are fairly simple. This one looks like wood cuts or etchings with tissue paper overlay.

If you have children, then no doubt you are familiar with "Good Night Moon." "Good Night Goon" is a delightfully hilarious spin-off using the same simple rhyme style. But the sweet little room is now a tomb and other fun changes like three little bears sitting on chairs are now three little mummies rubbing their tummies. I couldn't help but chuckle as read through. It's a perfect addition to the Halloween library.

"A Vampire is coming to dinner!" is a fun contradictory book where each page tells you a "rule" for how to handle Vampires. Like "put out the welcome mat" which everyone knows very well NOT to do - (if you don't invite a Vampire in, he can't get past the threshold). But when you open up page to reveal the illustration it's a fun twist on the rule and more appropriate to how we expect to handle Vampires (through recent Vampire lore anyway). In the " put out the welcome mat" scene there is a welcome mat at the front door for sure, but a bucket of paint (or holy water?) hanging above it, so when he comes in he gets doused. The illustrations are charming and the adventure through the book is sure to get lots of giggles.

"Scardy Cat Splat" is a fun new day in the life of Scardy Cat. My son has been fascinated with Scardy Cat since pre-school and this time he is trying to come up with the spookiest costume for the school Halloween party. It is a fun ride with all the silly, Scardy Cat antics.

There you have it! The Halloween book round up. I'd love to hear what you think about these books! Happy Halloween!

Handmade Halloween

I hope you had a great Halloween! We sure did here at the Zooski household. I had tons of projects planned for the month and as you know the best laid plans sometimes go awry. Now that the festivities are over and I feel like I have a moment to breathe, I'll share some of the handmade goodies that were actually completed.

For this first post, the costumes.

I was feeling a little guilty for not going "all out" and completely making our costumes this year. Although they started from thrifted and second hand pieces so it wasn't *so* bad. Z found the Evil Queen costume on a thrift store excursion and insisted that I get it to wear for Halloween. He let me know that if I would wear the Evil Queen he could be Snow White. (We do love our themed costumes.) And no, it wasn't odd for me to hear my 5 year old boy asking to dress as a girl (although the conversations that ensued from the simple question of "What are you going to be for Halloween" are topic for another blog post). He's very creative... and so I agreed, the Evil Queen costume was pretty cool and even if he changed his mind I wasn't out a lot of $$$.

The hunt was on to find a used Snow White dress. As much as I love the Disney Store costumes I couldn't bring myself to pay $30-$60 and the off brands are usually not made very well. Plus, I was feeling guilty, remember. I scoured craigslist and found a few then finally made the pick-up one sunny day in mid-September, all the while wondering if he would change his mind. He was pretty excited about it though, so I ran with it.

For the Snow Whiite costume I purchased new white tights and wig. I found some cute sparkly red shoes at Gymboree (from last year) on sale for $5. Bonus! Now for a bit of the handmade: I did alter the dress by removing the medallion on the front of Snow White's face and replaced it with the bow. I also added a zipper instead of the two cheesy velcro "buttons" on the back. Much better! Plus I painted a little wicker basket yellow, made a red fabric liner for it, sprayed it with glitter and tied a red bow around it.

The Queen's costume came with the crown and an odd piece of cording I couldn't figure out what to do with (at first). It became the "chain" for the medallion necklace. The medallion is made from a metal jar lid, the metal end from refrigerated biscuits, some paint, a sparkly red gem and glitter. Again I removed the Queen's face from the costume and the crown. My new medallion necklace covered up the spot perfectly, and looked much better than the Queen's face. I think that's silly, you know who the character is, you don't need a little picture to show you. I also sewed in some wire to the collar to make it bend the way I wanted and not just flop around.

So now all that was left was the balaclava (the head piece), I had to make it because I couldn't find one. Had I known how difficult it was going to be to make I may have looked a little harder to find one! It was a great learning experience however, and after a few failed attempts I now I have a working template. You know, in case I need to make a dozen more for some reason! But for the record I scored a scrap piece of fabric at Joann's that matched the black fabric of the costume perfectly! I wish I had actually made a new crown that was a bit more accurate, but I ran out of time.

Z and I got to wear our costumes at the Disneyland Happy Halloween party first. My best friend from Texas was with us on the trip and she dressed up like Dopey. We found a green sweater at a thrift shop for her and I embellished it with patches on the sleeves and button on the front. I had been itching to use the lids from Z's little microwavable meals as buttons for a while but couldn't seem to come up with  a project to use them on. This was perfect! I just primed and painted them brown to look like little wooden buttons and sewed them on with embroidery floss. They already have the 4 holes in the center, they couldn't have been more perfect! I made her hat with lavender fleece (from my fabric stash)  and we got her some big ears (which didn't stay on very well - I even tried to to sew them to the hat, but that didn't work very well either). Poor thing, it was too hot to wear a wool sweater and fleece hat in California anyway, so we had our picture taken together real fast and she changed. Bummer... but you know it was snowing in Colorado when I left, so a sweater seemed perfectly reasonable! And, the picture was taken with her camera, when she sends them to me I'll add it!

Back home the festivities were far from over. We had a Trunk-or-Treat event at school and of course we had to plan Daddy to be in on this somehow too. I suggested he wear the Dopey outfit, to which he adamantly refused. Early on we had talked about him being the Huntsman and I was trying to save myself a little work since the Dopey getup was already done. Alas, I whipped up a few Huntsman pieces too. I used last years Han Solo shirt, another thrifted piece for the vest which I cut off at the bottom to be able to use the same fabric for the hat and sword sheath. A piece of red craft foam made a nice makeshift feather! I embellished a thrifted dagger with more red sparkly gems, and used a thrifted piece of fabric for the cape (tied with a piece of cording left over from my handmade Beauty and the Beast Enchanted Christmas dress). I think it turned out pretty awesome for a last minute effort.

I made a few other props for us as well. The Queen needed her Magic Mirror after all. And the Huntsman needed the box to put the heart in. Neither of which are accurate, but they get the point across. So my not-so-handmade-halloween does have lots of handmade elements but most importantly made a little, 5-year old kiddo very happy! And they lived happily ever after.

The End.

Make Last Minute Halloween Decorations!

I started working on this digital art set way before Halloween and had great intentions of getting it complete and up on the site with plenty of time for people to find it and make lots of fun things before the actual big day. Well, now the big day is < 4 days away and the set is still not "complete" in my mind. However, I thought it might still be a great time to get it up as a free download for you to play with for a few days and then I'll have a whole year to work on it and perfect it for next year! Ha! The files will only be available for the free download until midnight 10/31/09! The set comes with five page backgrounds, corner web, orange ribbon, a funny ghost, spider and piece of candy corn. All files are .png formatted. Download the zip file HalloWords Digital Art File and please send links to the things you create with it! My biggest cheerleader on this project, Jacynthe from Life in My Craft Room, created some very cute cards to test the images out for me. (Thanks Jacynthe!) Check out her site and see some other cool cards she has created as well.

Thanks and Happy Halloween!

Halloween Favorite from the 70's

A friend had this album when we were kids and we listened to it so much that I can still recite most of it to this day. We would sit under a blanket fort with our flashlights and scare ourselves silly. I had forgotten all about it until last year a drive through Arkansas and Louisiana had me contemplating the old plantations and beautiful old mansions that were an inherent part of the deep south. Then the Narrators voice popped into my head and I was soon smiling and wondering if my friend still had that old album. I called her up and she laughed and told me she didn't have it, and she always thought that it was mine anyway... hmmm. Who knows what happened to it. But as luck would have it... and through the magic of the world wide web, it still exists!

I found this fun site where the author reminisces about the album too. Too funny.

So without further ado, I present to you Halloween Horrors. Take a listen and giggle along... I mean sit in a well lit area and try not to pee your pants with fright! =) LISTEN NOW Enjoy!

Halloween Friends

Halloween Friends
Here's a fun Halloween craft project you can use to make cards,
treat bags or lot of decorations.

Halloween if officially 58 days away! We already have lots of fun plans for this year's celebrations (no costume decisions as of yet, however), lots of crafty projects too! For the next couple of months I'll be sharing some of the projects that I'll be working on. I have so many lined up I can hardly wait to get to them all!

This first one is a super cute set of Halloween Friends that you can use to make your halloween cards with. A few alterations and additions could turn them into sweet treat sacs and I plan on making a whole slew of them to string up for a decorative pennant.

You can download the instructional pdf of the Halloween Friends right here. I'd love to see your creations, come back and share your take on these fun guys!

Happy Halloween Crafting!

Halloween Countdown

It's "just around the corner"... at least it feels that way to me. I started the countdown right at 95 days and now with at 82 days and the weekends "loot" I am so excited to get started on the crafty projects. Things are beginning to pop up in the stores. In Michael's array there are some adorable blingy pieces that would make the Crafy Chica proud... of course maybe she designed them, I didn't get a chance to look that closey! =) I'm *completely* in love with the Victorian looking collection at Cracker Barrel and today The Yankee Candle Co. has a sneak preview of their halloween product... I hope I can make a quick trip there before heading to the airport!

Thanks to my most wonderfullest, bestest friend I now have a whole slew of cute Halloween fabrics, patterns and decorations to add to the mix this year!!! Plus I really need to get to planing the trip to Disneyland as well. I'll finally get to seethe Haunted Mansion all decked out with Nightmare Before Christmas!!!! Yipppeeeee. Happy pre-Halloween everyone!

Show and Tell - Halloween Winnings

I am a little late with getting this post made... but better late than never. Last October I went nuts-o for Halloween crafting and decorating and entered my "Pin the Fangs on the Vampire" game in a few blog contests. And it must have been the right thing at the right time cause I won something in both, yeay me! =) So now I get to show them off!

The first was at Dabble.org and my prize was a custom illustration from Nancy. I hemmed and hawed at first not knowing what to request and then one day she posted this fabulous Alice in Wonderland inspired piece. Ah-ha! Instantly, I knew what I wanted and the results are better than my wildest dreams. I had two things I wanted the illustration to portray: Beast with blue eyes and Beauty with brown hair. And this is the amazing illustration I received!!! I truly love it Nancy, thank you!!

Next was at LivingLocurto.com and I got this adorable wall hanging decoration. It's made of wood and the letters are soft and pillowy. I love the colors and patterns and can't wait to make other pieces to go with it next year! Thank you Amy!

Halloween Game

Pin the Fangs on the Vampire
A fun Halloween spin on the old traditional
“Pin the Tail on the Donkey“ game.

I saw this a few years ago on DIY show called "Creative Juice" and thought it was so cute. We are having a big neighborhood halloween party next week and this will be a fun game for the kids in between munching on all the candy. I made a few modifications to their great design and have made a more user friendly pdf with all the elements on a few pages rather one page for each element. But if you'd like to see where the idea originally came from check it out. They show lots of other fun halloween games and decorations as well.

Materials:
16" x 20" frame

spray mount

sticky back hook and loop tape (such as Velcro)

spray fabric glitter

one package of 36“ x 36“ red felt (background and mouth)

9“ x 12“ felt in the following colors:

1 piece beige (face, ears and hands)

1 piece black (eyes, hair and pants)

1 piece white (fangs and eyes) 

2 pieces green (cape and eyes)

1 piece purple (cape collar)

2 pieces blue (jacket)

clear rhinestones (eyes)

red rhinestones (buttons)

Fabric-Tac glue

1. Remove the cardboard backing from the picture frame, and trim a piece of red felt to 18“ x 22“ to fully cover the backing. Using spray adhesive, spray the cardboard backing, and mount the felt to the cardboard, leaving some overhang. Smooth out any wrinkles, and place the felt-covered backing back in the frame.
2. Using templates provided, cut out the shapes, and glue into place using Fabric-Tac glue. NOTE (not on template): Cut one green 9 x 12 in half to have two 4.5 x 12 strips and angle to match purple cape sides. Use one full blue 9 x 12 felt sheet for each arm/side Angle 9" side to match cape hood and roll end inward to create the sleeves.
3. Once all pieces are glued into place, add rhinestones to accent the vampire's eyes and as buttons for his jacket.
Optional — Add spray glitter for flare. (I may have gone overboard with this part) If using spray glitter allow about one hour of drying time before playing.
4. Attach strips of sticky back hook and loop tape to each set of fangs using only the “hook“ portion of the hook and loop tape.
5. Hang on the wall for hours of fun.

Z sure likes it! Hope the other kids do too! Enjoy!

I have entered this on livinglocurto.com. Check out all the other great Halloween posts there too.

Storm Trooper Beginnings

It doesn't look like much right now, but yes, believe it or not this *WILL* become a Storm Trooper costume! I've got a lot of work ahead of me and time is running out. Tonight Z and I worked on taking measurements and then roughing out the basic shapes. We used a few thrift store finds and household recyclable items to get started. A beat-up and slightly broken knights breast plate was a great find! It's made of a soft plastic that was easy to cut. After the decorative dragon and "hardware" were removed it was cut up to make both Trooper torso parts. Paper towel rolls and a Quaker Oats container will be the arm and leg plates. The Tonka helmet was another thrift store find that had a rim and face shield. I cut those off and will sculpt the rest of the Trooper helmet with paper mache. All of the pieces will get sculpted with paper mache to add the detail, then painted white and coated with a sealer. (At least that is the plan...)

I have already secured black leggings, black turtleneck, boots (which will have to be painted white and black gloves. It may not be 100% accurate, but we're having fun. Wish us luck and check back to see the progress!

Halloween Books

A dear friend gave me this book last weekend because he thought it "looked like something I'd like". There is no way he could have known exactly how much it would mean to me! This is one of my all-time favorite poems called "The Spider and the Fly" by Mary Howitt, written in the 1800's. The illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi (love, love, love) are superb and the black and white, dark and dusty, victorian look matches the subject matter nicely. It always spooked me, yet the rhyming lines sucked me in again and again. =) It's a wonderful cautionary tale that has been given new life with it's own beautifully illustrated, hard bound book. No more will I have to dig through the pages of an old tattered book of poems. Thanks so much D.M.!

And since I'm still hung up on Halloween here are a few more fun books to celebrate the season. "Skelly the Skeleton Girl" written and illustrated by Jimmy Pickering. The story is quite cute and the illustrations are fantastic! The next book was a fun find. My dad cleaned out the basement and found lots of old books that belonged to me and my cousins. This version of "Little Witch" was published in 1973 and was a Scholastic school book for 50¢. Those were the good ol' days. I haven't read it yet, but I thought the cover illustration was so charming.

The last are books that have been recommend or have great art. I haven't had a chance to check them out either, but now they are on the radar to find. Happy Halloween reading!

Frank was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance by Keith Graves
Everything I Know about Monsters by Tom Lichtenheld
Boris and Bella by Carolyn Crimi Illustrated by Gris Grimly
Three Little Ghosts by Pippa Goodhart Illustrated by AnnaLaura Cantone
Cinderella Skeleton by Robert D. San Souci Illustrated by David Catrow
I'm Going to Eat You by Matt Mitter illustrated by Jimmy Pickering

Test Tube Halloween Treats

These were so much fun to make and a BIG hit with the kids today. "Did you really pick bats boogers?" Of course I did! How else do you get Bat Boogers?? You should have seen what I had to go through to get the Ghoul Gallstones! ;)

These are a quick, cheap and fun halloween treats. I paid about $9 (including shipping) for 72 little test tubes and 1 lb. of caps! I chose the caps with small holes and opted to make ribbon loop hangers for them. But you can also get solid caps. I wish I had gotten one of the little stands for them too...

To make the labels: Cut a 2" x 1" strip of halloween patterned paper and adhere to the tube. Using a 1" circle punch, punch out label. You can download a set here to print for yourself**. Affix with glue dot or stampin dimensionals. Add your favorite flavors of Nerds candy, and voila, instant tasty-gross treats the kids will love!

** for your personal enjoyment only!.

Card Swapin'

Here are a few of the latest cards for swaps. I love using the brayer and here I've used it on both cards with very different results.

SOCK MONKEY LOVE
Stamp Set: Sock Monkey
Paper: Very Vanilla, Basic Black, Real Red
Ink: Close to Cocoa, Basic Black
Markers: Close to Cocoa, Real Red, Bordering Blue
Tools: Brayer, Sewing Needle
Misc: Stampin’ Dimensionals, Crafting yarn (not Stampin’ Up!)

To achieve background: Run brayer across stamp pad with irregular strokes (so you get hard edges of pad) and roll on paper. (Will take a few passes to cover completely.)

To achieve texture on Monkey: Color with brush end of marker, trying to coat with one pass, quickly. Allow to dry. Use 0.5mm end of same color marker and draw lines back and forth across individual sections of monkey (i.e. head, ears, arm, etc.)

SPOOKY NIGHTS, HALLOWEEN FRIGHTS
Stamp Set: Halloween Frights and Frightful Fence Jumbo Wheel
Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Summer Sun
Ink: Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Lovely Lilac, Elegant Eggplant, StazOn White, VersaMark
Tools: Brayer, Heat Gun, 1 1/4” Circle Punch
Misc: Embossing Powder (black and white), Stampin’ Dimensionals, Staples

To achieve background: Run brayer across stamp pad in various directions (so you get irregular/hard edges of pad) and roll on Whisper White paper from lightest to darkest color (i.e Summer Sun, Lovely Lilac, Elegant Eggplant.) Go back and forth, up and down to “blend” colors together. As you can see I have some hard edges on this card that didn't get blended thoroughly, but that's what lends hand-made cards their charm =) Clean brayer between colors so you don’t contaminate your ink pads.

Halloween Jack

He's finished!!!! It only took six... or seven years! Ok, so it didn't really take *that* long. But I did start him in 2001 and just had a hard time completing the project. I had done the whole inside part and left off the border, then put him away and promptly forgot about him. And I know myself better now, I should have started at the top and just worked down like a normal person, but I get so excited I need to see the "face" completed. Once I do, I am done. When I do drawings or anything with faces and I complete the face (and sometimes just the eyes) I can't seem to get any further. So, I try to work on the piece as a whole now, or else, I know I'm doomed.

Anyway, I found him by accident not too long ago and decided he needed to be completed for this halloween. He was made by doing a sketch on 16x20 paper, then the outline was traced onto the latch-hook canvas. I blocked out the rough color areas but just sorta felt my way through the details since I didn't transfer any color marks to the canvas. Ta-da! Nice to have you completed Jack!

More Halloween Fun

Here is a super fun treat basket project that will delight your little Trick-or-Treaters. It can be used for so many occasions, not just Halloween. It's so easy and it's a recycled craft. Love that.

Here is what you'll need:

• Paper towel or Toilet paper rolls
  
• Themed paper and card stock
  
• Stamps, punches, adhesive and embellishments (ie. ribbon, brads)

Instructions

• Cut towel rolls into 2" strips. Use a paper template to trace sections and cut carefully with hobby blade.
  
• Cut paper (2 per container) into 6" x 2" strips to adhere to outside, and coordinating stock for inside. (Use strong adhesive like Sticky Strip)
  
• Punch or cut 2" circles for the base. Attach to tube with a liquid glue like Tombow or Crystal Effects
  
• Cut 3/8" x 5 1/2" strip for handle, punch 1/16" holes in each end and round ends if desired.
  
• Punch 1/16" holes in decorated tube and attach handle with brads.
  
• Embellish with stamped image cutouts, ribbon, etc.
  
• Voila! Fill with candy corn or small treats and hang on tree.

(I made extra stamped medallions to hang on the tree like ornaments as well. Stamps used: Batty for You, Halloween Frights. Paper stock used: Ghostly Greetings. Other Supplies: 1 1/4" circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, scallop punch. All products are Stampin' Up!

Luminaries. More goodies made from various size tin cans and the same paper set, Ghostly Greetings. Embellished with stamped and punched pieces, ribbon, rub-ons and hodgepodge hardware. Just drop in votives and light up your Halloween! The face of the pumpkin is also a rub on from the Chills & Thrills set from Stampin' Up!

Candy Containers. I've used Ghostly Greetings paper agian to wrap a peanut butter container that now houses the creepy eyeball candy. It's used on the individual chocolate bars as well. The possibilities are endless. My family may be sick of candy by the time Halloween really gets here this year. Oh, wait. I have to actually let them eat it to get sick of it. =)

If you decide to make any of the things I've shown send me links! I'd love to see what other people come up with.
Here's to 46 more days until Halloween!

Monster Hooded Towel

Totally not inventing the wheel here... but thanks to one of my favorite crafty bloggers I knew I'd have to give this a shot. I found some nice towels on sale at Bed Bath and Beyond a few days ago and was purposefully looking at the green ones since it's Z's favorite color. I had forgotten about the post Regina from Creative Kismet had done months ago but when I picked them up for some reason it was kinda like a thump on the forehead, *thunk* and brought it flooding back. It couldn't be more perfect with all the halloween crafting I've been doing too, fits right in.

Z likes it. Although, I think It needs a few modifications. The hood (made from a hand towel) is a bit too large and completely engulfs his head. I made some plain hooded towels with IKEA towels/handtowels and the proportions seem to be more user friendly. Plus, I'd like to embellish a little more by adding claws to the edges. Giving myself ideas... back to the drawing board!

Halloween Treats and Cool Colors

Just a quick note on how well the halloween M&Ms match Stampin' Up! colors. (Lovely Lilac, Kiwi Kiss, Only Orange and Basic Black). I've been saving these wine bottles for ever and didn't really know what I was going to do with them. They make lovely candy-holder-decorations.

I've just taken crimped black paper and lightly rubbed a silver ink pad over it to give it a metallic-grungy look. Layered on colored card stock, ribbon and super long twist ties (from toy packaging - again one of those things that looked like something could be done with, so saved...). Little medallions were made with the Stampin' Up! "Batty for you" set and dangle from a loop made with the twist tie. Topped with cork stoppers from the craft store and voila! Very cute Halloween themed decoration.

What a great treat to make for a halloween nut you know! The trick will be not eating all of the candy yourself.

More halloween themed crafts in the works...

Getting ready for the holidays

I LOVE fall. I love the smell, I love the weather, I love the changing leaves, I love a comfy sweater and most of all I love making things. Halloween is probably my favorite and now that my little one is old enough to be excited about it too, this year is gonna rock! I'm already on it. Of course I am in the OMG it's August-I-need-to-make-all-my-Christmas-presents mode as well!!!! Halloween first though.

I save all sorts of things I think may come in handy for craft projects and this time I'll get to put all those paper towel rolls to good use for the candy containers (thanks to a great demonstration at the Stampin' Up! Convention)! Some random cans will make lovely votive holders. A few thrift store finds have become pretty decorations as well. The orange vase only needed the little stamped pumpkin medallion to dress it up. The orange basket needed a new handle and thanks to a coat hanger and some black cording it now has one. I dressed it up with a cute Frankenstein medallion and scalloped punched paper stapled together and bolts through each side =)

The basket will eventually hold the candy bags. I picked up a pack of halloween cookie cutters at the last thrift store spree, hope to find some more. I'll place them in cellophane bags with candy corn etc. and tie them with ribbon and the extra stamped medallions. I also made a few halloween cards just for good measure.

The stamp set used is "Batty for You" and the Frankenstein sentiment is from "Smarty Pants". Both Stampin' Up sets. The papers, ink and ribbon used are Kiwi Kiss, Tangerine Tango, Pumpkin Pie, and Black. I can hardly wait to order the new Halloween paper and make all these things again. I'll be putting a class together soon showing how to make these great decorations so be sure to check out my stampin up site for class dates.

Who knows maybe I'll actually get super into Halloween and make my own candy corn too with this great recipe I found last year. (It's vegan friendly, btw.)

Now if I can just get Z to settle on the costume so I can start making that. Right now he's flipping between Astronaut and Donald Duck... stay tuned to see what his decision will be!