What?  You don’t see it on my table?  This is what my table looked like while trying to figure out the pattern for that little box!  (I’m not a clean crafter, that’s for sure!)

Then I took a nap-and my brain kept working on it.  I love how your brain is always working on solutions to problems, even if you’re not consciously working on it!  I woke up with the perfect solution and sketched it out right away:

Want to make one?  I’ve got the template for you!  Just download the pdf, cut, and trace onto your best black spider paper, attach ribbon legs underneath and you’re done!

To hold it shut black velcro works perfect!  It’s a great size for a small message and a piece of candy!  Doesn’t it look cute perched atop this jam jar watching over the treats?  I wrapped the jar in white organza to give it a little spider web feel to it.

Ready for the next project?  Need some easy to make drippy and spooky votives for your Halloween get together?

All you’ll need are some glass votives and red acrylic paint.  (I used the Christmas Red Folk Art paint from Plaid.)

Wash your votives so they are free of fingerprints, oils, and dust.

Hold the votive at an angle and put a bead of acrylic paint around the inner top edge of the votive.

To get it to get a good drip shape just tap the bottom of your votive on the counter top.  The drips will appear on their own.

Just let them dry and drop in your LED tea lights!  Easy peasy!

Happy Crafting!

Erin

In case you were wondering, yes, those are ALL brads!

But don’t worry I’ve made things easy for you!  Here’s the layout I did in Illustrator!  Just print it here and you’re ready to go!

I have lots of brads, and for some reason I had a TON of brass colored brads, which is weird because I think it’s safe to say I NEVER use brass colored brads on my projects!  I wondered if I could maybe, just maybe, make them any color I wanted.  Copic markers didn’t work too well, but you know what did?

How about some 99¢ nail polish!  It worked fantastic!  And for some reason the cheap nail polish comes in some great colors, including candy corn colors!  Let’s paint!

The easiest way I found to paint those little brads was to put them all into a block of craft foam.  (You don’t even have to unwrap the block from it’s plastic wrap.  Why have foam pieces all over the place if you don’t have to?)

Aren’t they cute all lined up waiting to dry?  Imagine all the colors you could make those little brass brads!  (I’ll be on the lookout now for brads in not so popular colors on clearance!)

While it’s drying, print your candy corn template and use this paper piercing tool:

I promise this paper piercer will make your job a whole lot easier!  I also use it to set my brads.  (I’ll show you how in a sec!)

Poke holes in your template directly on top of your little colored circles and add your brads.  (I set my template on top of the foam so it was easy to punch the holes in it.)  I found it easiest and faster to put in about 10 brads then turn it over and set them all at once.

To use your paper piercer to set your brads on back  just do this:

1. Use the tip of your paper piercer to start separating the brad back.

2. What it looks like after step 1.

3. Use the other end of the paper piercer to finish off setting the brad.

Keep going until you’re finished.  Honestly, setting all the brads didn’t take as long as I thought it would!

Happy Crafting!

Erin

I was hoping to surprise my husband with them by placing them on an unsuspecting dinner one night….but he beat me to it!  He found the bag of eyes and brought me a piece of toast with eyes!  Gotta love him!

If you’re not into edible eyes, try making this googly eye wreath!

Tutorial Here.

]]> http://www.schlosserdesigns.com/2009/10/googly-eyes/feed/ 2 http://www.schlosserdesigns.com/2008/10/tutorial-tuesday-spooky-shadow-box/ http://www.schlosserdesigns.com/2008/10/tutorial-tuesday-spooky-shadow-box/#comments Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:29:00 +0000 admin http://www.schlosserdesigns.com/2008/10/tutorial-tuesday-spooky-shadow-box/
This is another super quick one!

Supplies needed:
Shadow Box (get these at pretty much any craft store, even Target and Wal-mart have them)
Foam Tape
Spooky Patterned Paper

Instructions:
Cut the patterned paper to fit into the back of your shadow box.
Print from your photo editing program a spooky phrase. I used the Bleeding Cowboys font and printed it onto orange paper.
Stack about 4 squares of foam tape to each other and tape your phrase to the back. You’re finished!

Try adding a spider to the front, or a few gravestones. You have lots of space to work with, so make sure you use things with different depths to take advantage of that!

Happy Crafting!

Items you’ll need:

1 wreath
Glue gun
1 can black flat/matte finish spray paint
1 bottle each green and purple acrylic paint
googly eyes in various sizes (my Michaels had a bag with a variety of sizes for about $2)

First, paint your brown wreath to make it a nice spooky black. I used the flat finish paint so it wouldn’t look so glossy and unnatural.

After it is dry I used a foam brush with a little of the purple and lime paint on it and painted some streaks of color on the wreath. You can see it best in the bottom picture. Don’t worry about picking just one or two branches and painting the entire thing. Streaks here and there are just fine!
Then glue gun your googly eyes onto your wreath. I paired mine together so at night it looks like little creepies looking at you from the wreath. Next time I’ll probably add some glow in the dark paint streaks also!

Every time I say googly eyes I’m reminded of this skit:

Happy Crafting!

Candles (Any color will work. Since the embellishments are NOT flame proof it doesn’t matter too much what they smell like because we’re not going to light them. Mine are peppermint, leftover from projects last Christmas.)

Halloween/Fall themed ribbon

Scotch Transfer Tape (The red Tacky tape will work too.)

Now, cut a ribbon piece slightly longer than the circumference of your candle, put tape on the back, and tape the ribbon onto the candle. Done.
Hint: Try layering different widths of coordinated ribbon for a different look. This one has a wider black ribbon, with a smaller purple ribbon on top.
This ribbon was from Michael’s. The ribbon in their $1 bin is the perfect length to make 1 or 2 of these candles. These would make great little I’m Thinking of You gifts for neighbors and co-workers as well! Happy Crafting!

Fabric Pumpkins

These ones will last you just as long as the pumpkin pets in the previous post, and are a little more lightweight. :) You’ll need these three PDF’s:

Pattern: Panel

Pattern: Stem

Tutorial Instructions

The finished size is about 7″ around (not including the stem.)

You can enlarge the patterns to make different sized pumpkins. I’m working on one about twice as large and will post a separate pattern for that one very shortly. The larger one will also have a fabric stem as opposed to a felted wool stem. (Thanks to my friend Celia for letting me borrow some felt from her stash!!) Leave me a comment if you use it. I’d love to see what everyone creates! Happy crafting!

Updated: I added a new pumpkin stem pattern in a new post. There are two patterns. One is for a more straight stem that involves no blanket stitch, and the other is for a felt one that is a little more straight. Find the new post here.

See that one in the back there? The one with the vampire teeth? His name is Edward. :)

So these are SUPER easy to make. You know me, I keep my projects short and simple. The longest time for this one is waiting for the paint to dry.

Here’s what you need:

1 can each Orange and Green Spray paint
Various sizes and shapes medium sized rocks for the pumpkins
Smaller rocks for the stems
Sharpie Permanent Marker
E6000 adhesive

To get started, wash and scrub your rocks well and let them dry. Then paint them their respective colors. (This was the hardest part…waiting for them to dry!)

After they are dry, use your Sharpie to “carve” the pumpkins. It’s ok if your rocks aren’t perfectly round. Just use their shape to inspire your carvings. The pixelated face is one my husband did, see how the rock is almost a rectangle. And the happy toothy grin on the one next to it was done on a different side of the rock.

(To keep it as realistic as possible you can also use a yellow paint pen and make sure that the shapes you use are actually ones that you would carve.) Then use the E6000 adhesive to add the stems to your pet pumpkins and you’re finished. If you’re putting these outside, spray a clear coat of finish to protect your carving.

If you make your own I’d love to post a link here for others to enjoy. Just let me know when you post the picture and I’ll link it right up!

And… here’s a sneak peek of the tutorial for Tuesday! Enjoy!

My homemade ghost with felt eyes and a bouncy ball head. And my free spooky Halloween tree. I made Christian go with me and find a spooky dead branch at a little area of trees not far from our house. We found the perfect one and I stabilized it with a bucket of landscaping rocks we had in the garage. Next came little plastic skeletons I had and some orange pipe cleaners made into quick squiggles. I think it turned out alright. Next year I might have to try some orange lights. I also had little luminaries lighting the path. Some of the older boys found those amusing.

In general it was a good night. We passed out a lot of candy. It seemed that it started later than usual, probably because Daylight Savings time got changed from before Halloween to after Halloween and it’s really no fun Trick or Treating in full sunlight! At first I was worried that somehow the first 4-5 people that came to the door forgot the magic words….I opened the door and all I got was “Happy Halloween” and then their bag would open for me to drop candy in. I guess someone reminded them because after those first few it was “Trick or Treat” as normal.

Among the interesting things I heard tonight:

-Dude check these out! These are sweet! (Referring to my little plastic skeletons hanging from the tree)

-You look nice tonight. (I’m not sure how I feel about this one, coming from a boy about the age or 11 or 12. I was just wearing my Halloween shirt from Target…Hmm..)

-That’s all? The guy down the street gave us like 5 pieces! (I don’t think I need to explain this one.)

All in all a good night and the consensus is that we’ll do it again next year!

And here’s how it’s done. It’s pretty easy. I used two different FREE downloaded digital scrapbooking kits:

Coralee Evans, aka MzCora Halloween Mega Kit found at http://mzpimptress.vox.com. This kit is awesome! So many different papers and embellishments! (She just emailed me and let me know that her site where the Halloween Kit is found is down at the moment. If you leave a comment with your email I can email you the pages that I used to make the kit.)

Ronna Penner of Scrapadelic.com ExpressYourself alphabet found at http://www.scrapadelic.com/ (Well, it was found there, but I think it was a limited time only kit for free. The only thing I used from Ronna was the alphabet, which you could switch out the letters for any other font you feel like, but I still have to give credit to her.)

Anyway, just print out the pages onto white cardstock, trim to sizes below, glue/tape to foam core, tie together and your done.

The quantities and sizes of the pieces are as follows:

4- 2 1/4″ x 10″ paper pieces

2 – 3″ x 3″ paper pieces

3- 3″ x 4 1/4″ paper pieces (This is for the BOO pieces. You can print them out with the green background or if you have green cardstock, just print out the black letters onto the green cardstock to save a little of your ink cartridge)

Glue/tape them to foam core board and trim to the correct sizes. I hung all of them from a empty paper towel tube wrapped in black chenille yarn. Just put a stripe of glue down the tube and start wrapping! I connected all the pieces together by taping more of the black chenille yarn to the backs.

Finished Size: 12″ x 24″

Designer Tips:

I made mine to hang against a wall, but if would also make a great mobile. Just cover the backs of the pieces with solid or more printed pattern cardstock. (This designer tip is from Christian! Thanks!)

I originally designed this to be a Christmas wall hanging-use christmas colored paper and instead of the BOO you could have JOY, or put pictures of your family inside.

If you’re into quilting, this would also be great made from fabric! or wood, or…well you get the idea!

Also, since you’re only using small pieces, you can crop the papers down to size before you print them out, then you use even less cardstock and ink.

Any questions? Just ask!

-Erin