Happy Halloween

For some reason I just love all things Halloween, well, except spiders and cobwebs!  We never Trick or Treated when I was a kid, there aren’t any houses around that are decorated but still I think this is such a fun time of year.

So now that I have got into this crafting thing in a serious way I just had to do some Halloween themed creations.  I usually give my staff Easter and Christmas gifts but this year they’ve got an extra treat with some fun witchy gift bags full of Oreos.

I have to admit straight up that I scraplifted these from the Simply B blog – go check our hers, it is simply awesome.  We don’t get many varieties of Oreos here in Australia so I went with strawberry and chocolate ones, not quite as eye-catching as the mint (green) ones Betty used.

I cut the witch’s shoes from the Happy Hauntings Cricut cart – that is my most used cart to date and I love it!  There wasn’t a huge selection of Halloween fabric at my local fabric store and I think I should have gathered it first but also miscalculated how much I’d need (I made 13 of these bags) so had to ration it.  I also ran out of my sparkly black ribbon so had to raid my stash, hence the purple on this one.  But with all that aside, I think these are super cute for a Halloween treat.

I also made gift tags, I used the themes from the SBS 13 Days of Halloween challenge.  Unfortunately I was late starting so I didn’t get to enter the challenges but I’ll be posting them up one each day for the next 14 days.  I’ll miss a post on Saturday as I’m off bush to attend a Halloween party friends are throwing.  I’ve always wanted to dress up like Morticia Addams, check out this great video if you need a Morticia costume, a little sewing ability and it turns out looking amazing.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pieced together thanks

These two are the final ATCs I made.  Not being content with trying colouring on canvas for the first time I also thought I’d give decoupage (paper piecing) a go.  I found this great tutorial via the TGF website by a very talented lady called Mariska who does the most amazing decoupage crafts.

I used two gorgeous stamps from SOG on these; the first is Sweet Thinking Mae.

I used the following Copic colours:

Skin E50, E51, E53, E57 (E93 cheeks, R27 lips)

Eyes B00, B02, B05

HairYR23, E53, E55

Shoes YR00, YR02, YR04

Mae's dress is from the DCWV Mango Frost Matstack and I added the pleats in with YR00 and YR02.  The plaid probably wasn’t a good choice because the stripes don’t bend round her body like they should but I thought it was a fun pattern for her dress.  I used the same paper to do the bow in her hair.

I used some Core’dinations paper for the background and layered that with a piece from a Webster’s Pages stack.  To finish I cut a Nestie banner and transferred my sentiment from the computer before going over it with a Distress Marker and inking the edges of the banner.  I stuck Mae down flat and adhered the banner with 3D Zots to give it some height to match Mae.

And this one is Nouveau Girl Royal. 

I used the following Copic colours:

Skin E50, E51, E53, E57 (E93 cheeks, R27 lips)

Eyes G02, G05, G07

Hair E21, E33, E35, E57 and I added some Frost Smooch to the highlights for some sparkle

Shoes BG93, BG96

For Royal’s dress I used some paper from the DCWV Luxury Mat Stack and this time I used BG93 for the pleats.  I could have layered a few more times on her skirt but she was getting a bit chunky already so I thought I better stop!

Royal is also on a Core’dinations paper and Webster’s Pages’ background.  I used another Nestie shape for the sentiment, which I again transferred from the computer before inking with a Distress Marker.  It’s a bit hard to tell from the picture but after I inked the edges of the banner I added some Perfect Pearls for a bit of sheen.  Again, I laid Royal down flat on the ATC and used 3D Zots to adhere the banner.

So here’s how they started out, every tiny weeny little piece of them!

 

 

The blue outline around part of the complete images is where the white edge went to.  I didn’t look up the instructions first so I tried to add the glaze once they were all put together, which is maybe why it made the black outline around Mae run a bit!  It’s a tricky medium to use, I tried it on uncut paper, per the instructions, and I got a very uneven coverage so guess I have to keep trying.

The glue sure was tricky too, getting an even flow and even getting it in the syringe was hard!  I bought some tweezer-type scissors that are especially for decoupage and wow!  Now I know how people can fussy cut and get that lovely white outline.

Although these are far from perfect I love how the decoupage looks so I will be definitely be practicing this technique and using it some more.

Thanks for stopping by!