DIY clothing Tags

Its that time of year again for all those sweet craft boutiques and crazy Holiday sales!  That's why I have been absent a little from the blogging and fb posting besides Halloween stuff.  If you remember last year I participated in an amazing even called The Holiday House.  I loved it.  The people, the gifts, the food and fantastic customers who supported all the vendors.  It was a complete success.  You can read more HERE about the event last year. 

With Halloween being so busy with my Haunted House, I need more simple tasks and items to complete for the event this year.  Starting with the clothing tags especially.  Each item has to have a tag on it with our register number.  That is alot for my stuff.  So if it can be simple, and cheep then it is doable...and my handsome love can help me with it! 

So all you need for this simple yet sophisticated project is the following:

-Card stock paper

-your design printed on it.  I used the old picnic that is now on Google+ though the image editor OR you can use www.pixlr.com which is very simple like picnic.

-hole puncher

-string.  I used Bakers Twine I bought from this SHOP on etsy.  I had plenty left over from last year.

-safety pins

*Optional*

Brown ink pad/distressing ink

this adds a little character but looks great with out it too!

Here is a peek at what I'll be selling this year.  Just a few of the many.

DIY Chevron Wall Painting

Supplies:

Canvas

Acrylic Paint Craft Paint

Painters tape or masking tape

Paint brush

Permanent marker

I just love how super easy and awesome this project was.  I want to do more!!  Grab your micheals coupons and go get a Canvas of your choice. 

Tape your chevron stripes the size you want them. 

Paint your first color on the canvas.  After it dries peel off the tape.  I added a cream little stripe that I freehanded.  LOVE!

Using a stencil or free hand, draw the first letter of your last name.  I like the look of the bold preppy chevron with the fancy, victorian "R".  Use your permanent marker or pencil.

Then start painting and filling in the space.

I want to make a pillow for my couch like this!

ENJOY!

The newspaper Skeleton.

I busted out a few of these last Sunday. Found the best tutorial of how to make a full skeleton out of newspaper. You could probably use one big Sunday size paper per skeleton. More pictures coming soon. Happy Halloween!!

T-shirt Infinity Scarf

I am making a bunch of these for me!  They are great.  You can make them as thick as you want.  Since it is still warm in the fall and winter months I need my neck cool.  This was great. I wore it all day today and didn't feel hot once in the 98 degree weather.  Yeah. its the end of september. 

gather some shirts you like and cut the hem off the bottom.  I made my cuts about 4 inches wide.

stretch them up so they curl on the edges!  Awesome!  no hemming.

take a little scrap and tie around and knot.

Cute huh!!?

ENJOY! 

Ghost with Paper Mache mask

I am so lucky to have a couple of skulls and beauty school manequins laying around.  Then we didn't have to do these masks on our own heads.  So whip up some paper mache.  A little flower and water.  Not too thick, but not too runny.  I would say a little thinner than elmers glue.  After it is dry, then carefully peel it off.  IF you are using your own face or a friends face, cover with plastic wrap but make sure to leave holes in the nose for obvious reasons.  Then blow dry it for a minute after each layer to get the processe rolling.  then carefully take it off and lay out to dry.

Paint in your shadows.  I used black, brown, yellow and light peach skin color to acheive all this.  Some allow to dry for a minute in between shaddowing techniques.  Some good ole craft acryllic paint will do!

after it is all dry, fill the head with somehting, spray foam, newspaper or plastic bags light I did so it isn't so empty.  THen attach a wire hanger and secure it to the mask with packing tape.  This is clear so It won't show through the cheese cloth.  I may add a white sheet if I can ge someone to donate one for free so it isn't so see through. 

Apply your cheese cloth.  I also adjusted the head on the hanger to have a little tilt.  Things ar much scarier with a little tilt in their head.

This will be hanging hi up in a corner with a fan blowing on it to make it move.  This will definately be creey in a dark room with the black light.

ENJOY!

Body Bags ANyone?

I keep saying everything is my favorite, but it is true!  I love everyting that I have made. 

Supplies:

Newspaper (lots so start saving or collection from your neighbors)

 2 Black garbage bags (per body, I am sure you can buy from the dollar store, but I needed to purchase many many for all sorts of projects for the haunt. I bought the big box of 40 from walmart)

Duct tape or Twine.  (Both can be bought at the dollar store) 

Time:

15 minutes or so

Start wadding up newspaper and packing it in one bag really tightly.  Once it is pretty much full, start to form a head.  Use clear tap to tape in the back to grab and place the shap of a head.  Move onto the shoulder and do the same.  Slightly close the bag by pulling of the draw string so no newspaper falls out while you are molding in place.  Form the top half of the body in the first bag.  Fill the second bag with paper and start forming the feet.  Use tape to manipulate the shape of the bag so that it looks like feet.  This may take a few body bags to figure out, but they all will be different and that is great.  Continue up the legs, taping behind to keep the shape.  When it is all stuffed and shaped,tape the two bags together and add more paper ot the torso if needed.  To finish, start taping or wraping with twine to keep the body formed.  I personlly like my twine ones more than the duct tape.

Funny story to go along with the body bags.  So ALlisndria was helping me crumple the paper and put in the bags.  She kept asking what we were doing.  I said it is going to look like a person in the bag all wrapped up.  I just tell her what it is and don't sugar coat anything. 

Later that week I was doing a hair appointment on a client who shares the same excitement about Halloween.  I yelled to Pia, "Pia! Bring in the Body bag!!"

Two seconds later I can hear the dragging plastic on the tile.  I started to laugh when I turned to the door of my salon room and Pia is dragging the body bag.  My client started laughing.  She dropped it and showed her the body.  Pia then continued to tell her how we made it and how it looks like a person inside.  lol.  She leaves the room.  I continue working only to stumble over the body bag.  I yell to Pia again.

"PIA! come GET THE BODY!"

my client replies, "well that's not something you say to a 4 year old every day!"  SOOOO FUNNY! 

**let me assure you that my kids are reminded every day when doing halloween projects that this is just for fun and it isn't real.  I don't let them watch scary movies, but I let them help me create my haunted props.  It helps them be aware that it isn't real and they won't get scared later on.  I don't think they will be entereing the Haunt on Halloween, but if they say they want to I will let them. 

Giant Spider Egg Sack

 

So I immediatly pinned this once I saw it!  Low and behold it is a good ole craft from Martha Stewart.  Did you know Halloween is her favorite?  She does a haunted house at her house every year?  Love it! 

  I did a little mini Haunt with my friend last year and her boys.  They have a large side gate area on the side of their house.  We decided last minute to do a haunt for the trickor treaters.  It rocked.  It has been one of my to do's for some time.  Every year after trick or treating with my kids I usually go back out by myself and stalk people in my black cloak.  so fun!!.  So this year if you haven't seen already on my Halloween pinterest board, I am gathering ideas for our Haunt this year.  It is going to be bigger and better than last year and we have a few more boys enlisted to help haunt.  OOOOHHH I am so stoked!

  

 I made a modification to this tutorial once I made my first one.  Since the Dollar Tree didn't have an egg shaped foam, I used the square adn tried to carve it.  I had to wrap it up in toiliet paper to cover the green color and to make the edges more smooth.  It turned out all right but then I realized I had a plethera of grocery bags. Perfect!!! So I used those for my other ones instead.  I have to make a lot for one section of our Haunt.  This year it is starting in the garage and going all through (its a 3 car garage) and out the side door to the side gate aream then exiting out the gate. 

SUPPLIES:

I have been so lucky to find all our items we need at the Dollar store so far.  So if you go to the sock sectoin you will find kids white Panty Hose/Tights $1

Egg shaped foam (white) or use plastic garbage sacks

Spiders $1 from Dollar store. 

Hot Glue Gun

Your tights will make two sacks FYI.  So cut in half!

Insert your insides. foam, plastic bags etc...

Your kids will love helping and they can't really srew it up so get them involved.  Randomly place spiders inside the tights around the egg sack.  Cut of the ring part if you are using spider rings like I am.  Gather most of the spiders on the bottom.

Now hot glue piders on the outside of the sack starting at the bottom.  Look at Martha's HERE.  It is aweomse with the randomly hanging spiders everywhere.  This is going to totally freak out anyone who has a phobia! 

ENJOY!



Halloween Spell Book

Saw a couple of these on pinterest but they didn't explain too well how to do it.  They only showed the end result.  This has to be a new favorite of mine!!  You can make one too for really cheap.

Supplies:

Hard Cover Book from Dollar store. $1.  I bought one that was already black under the paper cover that you can remove.  Then I didn't have to paint it.

Water color paints $1 from Dollar store

Sponge Brushes 10 pk $1 Dollar store

Printed Spells.  Copy mine or make up your own!  I suggest you don't google it because there really are people who are into witch craft and it brings up real stuff.  So stay away.  Just be creative!

Now open the book to a center spot you would like to park your spells.  Start by using reds, browns and yellows washed out with lots of water.  Using the sponge brushes makes this really easy and gets the pages nice and wet while spreading around the right amount of color.  Paint all the edges and saturate the edges and corners of all the other pages.  

After you paint, roll in the edges of the pages.  My cute friend made one with me and she held the cover of the book so the pages are facing the floor and rocked it back and forth so the pages go seperated. This makes it look really wethered and old. 

Print your spells.  You may need to cut them after they are printed so they fit the size of your book.

Mod Podge, or glue someway the spell to the book.  Then paint and distress it as well.  Let dry and add any other decoration you wish.  We used red candle to look like blood spill and then a black spider. 

Enjoy!!