Happy Homemade Halloween....a few days late!!!!

 

Even though Halloween is over, we wanted to share our costumes from this Halloween.

Tia and I both made our costumes this year!!!!

 

I was an owl.  I love owls so it was a perfect choice for me.   My mask was all feathers and makeup that I did.  That's my son in the picture with me.  He made the cutest Waldo.

 

 

Tia made a loofah and soap costume for her and her husband, Brian.   It was great and they won a trophy at a Halloween party that they went to.   

 

Love,
Andrea & Tia

CaNDy CoRN

A little over a week ago, I made a fast craft with my friend Valerie.     We made the Candy Corns out of cream burlap.   Valerie made us templates to use to trace out the Candy shapes onto the burlap.  Once the shapes were cut out, we painted the burlap with craft acyclic paint in candy corn colors.   Once the paint dried we added some jute to hang them from.    I already had the feather wreath on my door and I added my Candy Corn that I made to the wreath.    

    Happy Halloween!!!! 

Love Andrea



Crow pillow tutorial

Halloween Silk Screened Crow pillows

 

Supplies

Fabric

Pillow forms

Die cutting machine

Yudu machine

Vinyl

Cutting mat

fabric scissors

Rotary blade

Ruler

silk screen paint

heat tool

cardboard

 

Not to worry if you don't have a diecut machine or a yudu machine.  I will add cheats on how you can do the same look with out them.

 

Tinker my cat wanted to help make the pillows  :)

I used my used my silhouette machine to die cut a crow on sticky back vinyl.   Doesn't matter what color you use because you will be using it a mask to silk screen the image.  Cheaper version: cut out the shape that you want using an exacto knife or scissors in the vinyl.

I didn't take a picture and really wished I did but I will try to explain the best I can of the next step.  I  I used my yudo machine and a screen to silk screen the crow image on the fabric.  I stuck down the vinyl to the top of the screen and made sure that it was stuck down to the screen well so that no paint will leak under the image.  Not so pretty when paint leaks!!!    Cheaper version: If you don't have a yudu machine you can just stick the vinyl directly to the fabric.   You will just need to be careful when you apply paint.  

If using the screen you can silk screen the image following the directison with the machine.  I used cardboard tshirt forms under the fabric to hold it in place and so that it wouldnt bleed through.  If you are going to cheaper route used a paint brush and fabric paint to fill in the image.    Remove the vinyl and you will have your silkscreen image.

We used a heat tool to speed up the drying process. 

Silk screened Crow on the fabric that is the front of the pillow. 

I used black fabric and cut the fabric large enough for the pillow form that I was going to use.   Pinned the two pieces of fabric for the pillow and did a fast single stich to close all sides.   I pretend to sew so don't judge my skills.  LOL!!!    I added the form and did a fast stitch to close the pillow.   I pulled and frayed the fabric around the edges for a Halloween look once the pillow was completed.                              

Happy sewing or pretend sewing in which ever is your case. ;)

 

Happy Halloween!!!

Love,

Andrea

Favorite place to visit....

One of my favorite shops is located about 1 hour and half car trip from Huntington, WV.   The store is the Hartwell House located along the Ohio river in Pomeroy, Ohio.    My mother in law took me about a year ago and we visit every few months.   I love to go and see their displays and the eclectic mix of items that fill the store.  The store carries everything from jewelry to home decor and everything in between.    My favorite staple items that they carry are a mixture of initials & monograms and the black and white sayings from Kathy's primitives.    Tia and I both have several of the sayings in our homes.  

Some of these images are from this September and last September.      

 

Downtown Pomeroy Ohio The Hartwell House is on the corner

Hearts in the hand prints in the concrete out front of the store.

Hartwell House Store front

This is my friend Valerie.   She went with us on this trip to Pomeroy.  I wanted to share this picture and tell the story about a rare scene that we came across along our way.   We stopped at this little stand of pumpkins and mums that was ran based on the "honor system".     We bought several pumpkins and we placed our money in the box that was there on the cart.   :)  

 

If you ever get the chace to visit Pomeroy stop by visit and shop the Hartwell House.  Say hi to Bobbi and the girls that work there.

xoxo

Andrea 

HaLLoWeEn in NeUtRaLs

Halloween is one of my most favorite times of the year!  This year, I've decided to decorate in an Edgar Allen Poe-esque feel with lots of black and neutrals.  My craft group is meeting next week to make an Edgar Allen Poe wreath.  Can't wait to post pics.  Here is the wreath that I made inspired by my sweet friend, Pam's wreaths that she makes.  It's just layers of vintage paper rolled up and I added my own special unique touch to it by cutting a skull in half....well, my hubby did that for me and dipping coffee filters in black Rit Dye to fill in.  I am in LOVE with how this turned out!

The wreath now has a spot on my mantle hanging in front of an original window that was in my grandparents house.  Surrounded by vintage silver platters, vintage silver trophies, a retro camera, cloche full of skulls and moss, silhouettes of rats, and other textures, it has a spooky yet understated glam feel to it.  

Peace, love, and Halloween!!

xoxo,

tia

Huge Halloween Wands

My friend, Pam and I had so much fun making these when she and her family came over the other night.  We got the idea from the very sweet and talented Rhonna Farrer.  We used a variety of papers and embellishments to create this whimsical display.  

Pam brought over some vintage newspaper from 1935 and since she has a scrapbook paper addiction (wink wink) she had a ton of papers to choose from for the embellishments.  We also used dollar store finds and coffee filters which you know are my FAV!  Here are some easy steps to create the wands:

1.  Fold paper in an accordion style fold.  Once you get to the end, just fold it then in half and hot glue it together.  You will have a half circle sort of "fan".  

2.  Repeat step 1 with the same size paper.  (We used wrapping paper cut in the same size for the polka dot ones)

3.  Once you have 2 "fans" of paper, then all you do is hot glue the 2 halves together and voila, you have a full circle.

4.  You can add as many layers as you want to create many different looks.  Hot glue is your friend.  I also used a spider web that I found at the dollar store and coffee filters for some of my centers.  

5.  The sticks are just large dowel rods that I spray painted black.  Since they are so large, I secured them with hot glue AND duct tape.  Yes, duct tape.  It's powerful stuff and no one is seeing the backs of these bad boys.  I used sand in the bucket so it wouldn't tip over.  

Peace, love, and craft!!!

tia

Burlap football

Tia and I both went to college at Marshall University in Huntington, WV and we love our Thundering Herd Football!!!! I normally decorate my porch with pumpkins and mums but this year I added wanted to add something football related since it cant be fall without football. Right? :)

I made this football hanging for my front door. I used things that I already had in my craft room. Yay!!!!! for reusing some of my craft supplies. :)

These are the supplies that I used:

Burlap

Sharpie marker

scissors

brown and white acrylic craft paint

foam paint brush

rounded paint brush

glue gun and glue sticks

tissue paper

assortment of ribbons

ric-rac trim

I didn't take pictures of the process this time. :( I do promise that it only took me about 30 minutes to make and it was very easy.

I used some scrap burlap fabric to make the football. I used the regular burlap tan color. I'm pretty sure that Hobby lobby has brown burlap that you can get but I just wanted to use up what I already had. First thing that I did was drew freehand a football shape using a sharpie marker. Mine isn't perfect but I think that it looks fine. I cut out the football shape and retraced it on another piece of burlap. I cut out the second football so that I would have two identical pieces of burlap shaped like footballs. I painted the burlap with the brown paint and to make this process even faster I just squirted the paint directly to the burlap and spread it with the foam paint brush. I thought about sewing the burlap together but that would mean getting out my sewing machine and that would be to much work. I used my glue gun and glued the two pieces of burlap together leaving the top open.

While the painted burlap was drying, I made the ribbon bow hanger for the top.
I took strips of ribbon and ric-rac that went together to make the "bow" at the top. I left the long black and white polka dot ribbon a bit longer to connect it to the football. I wrapped the ribbons with the black and white polka dot ribbon. I glued the ribbon inplace with hot glue.

Once the brown paint was dry, painted the football stiches usisng white paint. I glued some black ric-rac to the football to add a little detail.

I stuffed the burlap with crumpled up tissue paper before I glue the ribbons to the football before I glue it the rest of the way closed.

GO HERD!!!!!!!

Andrea & Tia