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

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.

Spooky Halloween House

As a finale to my week of Halloween tags I decided I was going to decorate a cardboard house I found at a local craft store. This project took a bit longer than I thought but I love how it turned out!  I hope you have enjoyed the week of Halloween tags! If you want to go back and see all the Halloween tags in one place you can do that here.

I just love these Cosmo Cricket chipboard shapes! And I'm not just saying that because they posted one of my tags on their blog!
I didn't do a tutorial for this house but just to give a run down on what I did - I painted the entire house black first (yes I finally went out and bought black craft paint!) I then covered the roof in white vintage buttons - this took me HOURS - seriously way too long! (side note - I used glossy accents to adhere the buttons - this stuff is an amazing adhesive!). I then cut out strips of paper - cut into rectangles - inked each piece and adhered them to the front of the house - YES those are tiny rectangles of paper - and YES I am crazy because that took HOURS as well! I then added the trees (which i found on clearance at a local craft store) and the Cosmo Cricket chipboard pieces and there you have it!

This Halloween House can be viewed in the Two Peas Gallery here

Halloween Tag Giveaway!

So last night I was driving home from my fabulous class when I thought - Hey! I should do a giveaway!

So here is my giveaway: TWO people will win their favorite Halloween tag from my week of Halloween tags AND a couple of goodies from my ever growing and much too big stash of scrapbook stuff! And don't you worry I'll give you something new and good - no crap from 10 years ago!

To enter here is what you need to do:

1. Recommend my blog and facebook page to your friends - pick 5 (or 10 or 15 ....) people you know and send them an email or a facebook suggestion or something but let them know about this blog and tell them to become a follower! (this is on your honor - I can't track it but help a girl out!)

2. Follow me on either facebook or google friend connect or both (this I can check!)

3. Leave a comment on THIS post and tell me which of the halloween tags is your favorite! You can see all of them here.

Entries end at Midnight EST Saturday October 16. I will announce the winners Sunday! Good Luck!

A Week of Halloween Tags - Day 5

Being that it's after midnight it's technically day 5 -so here it is - the last of the tags. Want to see all the tags from start to finish - click here.

This tag was super easy and fast - I adhered the background paper first. Then cut a smaller orange strip and adhered that. I then made the pleats and adhered those. I cut the raven/black bird with the making memories slice and added some glitter. I added some bling and stickers and finished it off with a white pen to draw on some faux stitching.

A Week of Halloween Tags - Day 4

This post is going to be a really quick one - I only have a few minutes before I need to be at work. Today's post is just a simple tag - I adhered the new pink paislee Parisian Anthology paper to the tag and inked it with black soot distress ink (so the resist showed through). Then I added some ribbon to the bottom in layers. Added some rhinestones, cosmo cricket witch and cosmo cricket tiny letters - and there you have it! - Day 4

A Week of Halloween Tags - Day 3

Here it is Day 3 - I thought when I started this project I was going to do more artsy/messy tags - something with paint or ink or mist as the base but I'm really loving the simple tags with patterned paper and lots of layers.
And just for you a tutorial on how to make the accordion embellishment:
Start with 2 strips of paper - 12" x 1". Starting at the end fold a piece over approximately 1/2"
Continue to fold the pieces over - back and forth - accordian style. Do the same with the other piece.
Adhere the sides together
You will be left with this awkward accordion circle thing. Punch a circle - I used 1.25"
Fill the circle with glue - I used glossy accents - I strongly recommend hot glue (if you aren't worried about acid free - is hot glue acid free? I don't know - but it is WAY easier because it dries super fast. Take the accordion circle and push the center together and adhere to the circle - I put a little bit of glue in the center to help hold it together.
Cut a second circle and adhere to the other side. Ink with distress ink and there you go! In the tag I made I layered a second 1" circle on top and then a sticker.

Week of Halloween Tags - Day 2

So here it is - Day 2 of the Halloween tags. And this one comes with a tutorial!  Want to see all the tags in one place? Click here. Enjoy and come back tomorrow for another tag!
Supplies - shipping tag, paper pad (this one is Spook Alley from Making Memories), ribbon, adhesive, Making Memories Slice, Glimmer Mist, cropadile, distress ink (spiced marmalade).
Start by gluing the shipping tag to the back side of the paper you would like to use. Cut the tag out.
Using the slice cut out bat shapes using the same patterned paper as the tag. You can use any die cut machine to do this or hand cut them if you are really talented! Cut them at different angles on the paper so that all your bats won't be flying at the same angle!
Adhere only the body of the bats to the tag - I lined my text on the bats up with the text on the paper (the exact words didn't line up) - leave the wings free and push up so they look like they are flying out of the text
Use distress ink to ink the edges of the tag and the wings of the bats - this helps them stand out a bit.
Cut a phrase out of patterned paper - ink the edges and adhere to the bottom of the tag.
Flip the tag over and cut the hole out with a hole punch
I sprayed the whole tag with glimmer mist at the end. I used old lace because it leaves a shimmer without adding color to the tag. I could have done this before adhering the bats but I didn't think of it until after - plus I like how the wetness of the glimmer mist causes the distress ink to bleed a bit. I used the heat tool to dry it
Add some orange ribbon and you are done! If you like my blog be sure to "follow me" with google friend connect - located on the top right side of the screen.

A Week of Halloween Tags

In the spirit of Halloween and because I like to create work for myself - I will be posting a Halloween tag every day this week (5 tags plus a very special post on Saturday). Hope you enjoy!

Halloween Birdhouse Tutorial

So here it is - the tutorial for the Halloween Birdhouse. Think about all the possibilities for these little wooden pieces - you could turn it into a Christmas house or you could make it a shabby chic cottage with lots of flowers! Anything's possible!

Supplies:
1. Wood birdhouse
2. Patterned papers (I used 3 different patterns) die cuts and stamps - I used the My Mind' Eye Blackbird collection
3. Two inch circle punch
4. Tracing Paper
5. Black acrylic paint (not pictured)
6. Mod Podge (I used matte)
7. If you are stamping - stamp block, distress inks, archival ink, watercolor brushes
8. Nonstick Craft Mat - because EVERYONE should have one of these!
Paint the edges the birdhouse with black paint (you only need to paint the parts that will show) Unfortunately I didn't have black paint (who doesn't have black paint??) So instead of driving the half mile to the local craft store I decided to paint it with black soot distress reinker. Which totally worked - until I wanted it to be dry - and it wasn't drying - but I had this brilliant idea to seal it with mod podge and hoped that would make it so I could handle it - and it totally worked! But it would have been SOOO much easier with acrylic paint!
2 Use tracing paper to trace the sides of the birdhouse. Use the patterns to trace and cut out your sides from patterned paper (i picked different patterns for the top, sides, and back and front) And I totally learned to use tracing paper from Melissa Samuels - genius!
Use mod podge to adhere your pieces to the birdhouse ( I apply the mod podge to the wood)
Sand down the corners to make sure the papers are flush with the sides of the house. You could ink the sides at this point (I planned on it... but I forgot...oops!)
Apply mod podge to the outside of the birdhouse to seal it - it also gives a really cool texture.
Now comes the embellishing! Instead of cutting the birdhouse hole out of the paper I punched a 2" circle out of black cardstock and glued it to the front - made my life SO much easier! (helpful tip - when using punches flip the punch over (like pictured) so you can see where you are punching - much more relevant when punching patterned papers)
I used the coordinating stamp set and stamped a punch of tree images. I then used my distress inks to watercolor them. To do this I picked a couple colors I liked (spiced marmalade and peeled paint) and wiped the ink pad on the craft mat. Then taking watercolor paint brushes (they have water in them - when you squeeze them the water comes out) I added a little bit of water and painted the ink on. When I was done I cut the images out. (tip - I use ranger archival ink to stamp the image - it's waterproof so it won't bleed when you paint the distress ink on - staz on would have worked as well but I LOVE archival ink)
I embellished the rest of the house by cutting images out of the patterned paper and adhering to the house. To get the trees in the front yard to stand up I left an extra piece at the bottom to fold over so it would stand up.

Well there it is! I hope you enjoyed and if you decide to make one send me a picture, I'd love to see! And who knows.. it might end up on the blog!

This post is linked at Polly Want a Crafter? and Blue Cricket Design and: