My Halloween Favorites

Can you believe its almost Halloween??  It seems like Fall is flying by - which is super sad because its my favorite season - I am NOT looking forward to winter and the colder weather.  Here are a few of my favorite Halloween posts from the last two years here on the blog.  Hope you enjoy!

 Spooky Halloween House - October 2010

Halloween Door Decoration - October 2009

Hocus Pocus Tag - October 2010

Halloween Birdhouse - October 2010

Hocus Pocus Tag - October 2011

Best Friends Tag

Is there anything better than new paper?  (Well I love "old" paper too..)  The great thing about having worked at a scrapbook store was I came home with a bag of new paper almost every day - and I got all the latest releases as soon as they hit the store!  Now that the store is closed I have become a little choosier in the paper that I buy (which is great for my wallet!) but every now and then I have to splurge.  Last week I bought a bunch of the new October Afternoon Sidewalks line (LOVE October Afternoon!).  I couldn't wait to use it so I made a cute little tag: 

Mummy Inspiration

Have I told you how much I love Pinterest?  Yes?  Ok well how about lately?  haha.  I LOVE Pinterest - its a great place to find inspiration (and so easy too!).  Last week I noticed a lot of people were "pinning" my Mummy Tag so I wanted to see what other great Mummy crafts were out there.  Here is a few I found on Pinterest:

 Craftaholics Anonymous - Easy Mummy Tutorial

 Parents- Mummy Juice Boxes

 Kaboose- Yummy Mummy Treat Holders

Alderberry Hill - Tin Can Mummy

I have a lot more inspiration in my Pinterest board "Mummy" here.  You can follow my on Pinterest here.  Also a little note - these are great projects - if you do decide to "pin" them please go to their original site to do so or "repin" from my board - that way when someone clicks on your pin it goes to the original poster and not to me!  I am a big fan of credit!

Week of Halloween Tags - Day 5

My final Halloween tag is by far my favorite. I free hand cut a witch hat out of black paper, adhered it to a vintage photo (like the ones here), and added some stickles.  Thank you for checking out my week of Halloween tags - hope you enjoyed them!!

Week of Halloween Tags - Day 4

 Today's tag is my favorite!  I used an antique tintype photo (because I think they look creepy and perfect for Halloween!).  Just a little background on tintype photography: it was invented in the 1850s and continued to be popular through the late 1800s. These photographs were produced on a thin metallic sheet of coated iron (not tin!) and were cheap, quick, and easy to produce so they were typically used by street photographers or in carnivals and fairs. I love using them in my projects (and sometimes they come with a super cute embossed frame!).

Tintype Halloween Tag Tutorial:

1.  Find a tintype photograph to use or an old vintage photo (I was really lucky because they one I found had a creepy black shadow or smudge over the person's face.
2. Separate the tintype from the frame - save the frame for a later project
3. Find a Halloween paper with a frame printed - cut the center out and ink the rough edges to make them less noticeable.  (I used Pink Paislee Halloween papers).  Adhere the tintype behind the frame.
4.  Embellish with ink, rhinestones, and a rubon.

And guess what? I have a bunch of tintype photos in my shop.  You can check them out in the photograph section of my shop here.

Week of Halloween Tags - Day 3

 Today's tag is all cut from patterned paper.  Here is a tip for making your own dimensional embellishments:  buy two sheets of the same paper that has a image on it that you like (like this owl).  From one sheet cut the entire image out in one piece.  From the second sheet cut pieces of the image out (like the eyes, nose, wings).  Pop dot the pieces to give a little bit of dimension to part of the image. 

Check  back tomorrow for another tag and a tutorial!

Week of Halloween Tags - Day 2

Today's tag is simple - no tutorial but I inked the doily (with the new autumn distress inks) and glimmer misted it for sparkle.  Then I added some patterned paper, seam binding (inked with distress ink), and a rubon - and pretty much that's it!  See you back tomorrow for another tag!

Week of Halloween Tags - Day 1

 

I'm back with a week of Halloween tags!  I did this last year and it was a great way to use all those cute Halloween papers and embellishments I am addicted to buying (but never use!).  Today's tag is inspired by Linda at Craftaholics Anonymous and her Easy Halloween Mummy Tutorial (see it here).

Easy Mummy Tag Tutorial:

1. Paint a tag with either white paint or gesso
2. Glue a pair of googly eyes to the tag.
3. Using ribbon or cheesecloth, or in my case seam binding (that I scrunched and crinkled) glue the end to the back of the tag at the bottom - wrap the ribbon around the tag - leaving space for the eyes.  Glue the other end to the back at the top of the tag.
4. Spray the tag with glimmer mist to give it a little bit of a shimmer (I used the white chalkboard glimmer mist).  I covered the eyes with a piece of seam binding to try to keep them from getting sprayed - but they got sprayed anyways so I just wiped them off after. 
5.  Rub over the tag with distress ink (i used "old paper")
6. Embellish - I added a button to the bottom right corner.

 

Be sure to check back tomorrow and all week for more Halloween tags!
 

A Little Break

 So I thought what I needed was a month of creativity - turns out what I really needed was a break.  As you might have guessed by now I didn't finish my month of creativity project - I barely even started it.  Last month was just a crazy month - a lot going on - some good - some not so good - the perfect time to take a break.  But I'm back!  And I'm so excited its October - its my favorite month!  It's the beginning of fall, the month of my wedding anniversary, usually includes a trip to mountains - oh and Caramel Apple Spice at Starbucks! (hmmm is it sad that I get excited about a drink?).  Anyways I finally made my way back to the studio after a long month of not even opening the door.  Next week I will be back with a week of Halloween Tags.  You can see the ones I did last year here. 

And completely unrelated - I am completely addicted to Pinterest!  You can follow my boards here.  Feel free to send me a message or leave a comment with your boards so I can follow you too!

I will see you back here Monday!!