Halloween Countdown

I just participated in another Craftster swap, one in which you send one awesome item to your partner. One thing about my partner, she is a huge Halloween fan. I love working on Halloween crafts no matter what time of year it is, so I decided to make her an October calendar that she can use every year.

The calendar consists 31 ATCs, bound together with a Bind It All, and mounted on a collapsible cardboard frame. I also included a little costumed rat, to keep her company.

The back cover folds up to create a triangular stand for the pages. Each day in October, she can flip one over as Halloween approaches. I used playing cards for the bases of the ATCs. They're just the right size, and it's easy to quickly cover them with scrapbook paper and then cut them out. I didn't cover the backs because I don't mind the way they look, and the cards would be way too fat with all that extra paper involved.

Here's the calendar on October 1:

on the 5th:

And on the Halloween itself:

I really had fun making a card for every day of October. Here are all the cards before they were bound:

 

I hope this gives her many years of Halloween joy.

GIANT X-acto Knife Prop

Have you ever needed a really, really big X-acto knife? Well, I have, so I thought I'd make one of my own, mostly with stuff we had around the house.

 And here it is. I think it looks real, although it's actually 4 1/2 feet tall. (That's an actual X-acto knife lying beside it on the floor.)

The knife itself is made of 1 1/2" PVC pipe, spray painted silver. The blade is made of thin wood, and sits in a black rubber end cap that I slit open with a box cutter. I think the part that's under the cap is what really makes it: I went looking at Home Depot to find something to mimic that grip part on a real knife, and almost cried real tears of joy when I found this 2" clear pipe with nylon reinforcements in it. It fits perfectly on the PVC, with no adhesive necessary!

 

I cut the stencil out for the logo on my Silhouette Cameo, then traced around them with pencil and hand-painted the logo on with black. It's a tiny bit wambly, because it's not easy to paint on that round surface, but I'm pretty happy with it.

What does one do with a giant X-acto? I'm going to use this for a prop in a costume I'm making, and then it's going to live in my craft room as decor. 

Housewarming

My cousin and his wife are moving back into town after several years (yay!), and we're going to go see their new place on Wednesday. I want to bring them a housewarming gift, so I got a scrap of wood, painted it white, stenciled on some letters and then painted them. Then I sanded the front and the edges, which are painted black. This is a quick and easy gift. It probably took less than two hours to complete.

Now I hope they'll stay put for a while!

Tin of the Month Club, March

Is it March already? Then it must be time for this month's tin. I went a little Eastery with this one, even though most of the time Easter falls in April. I think I just needed to feel like Spring is on its way! Here's a cute little fellow and his friend the Easter bunny.

Here are the first quarter tins so far: January, February, and now March. I already feel like this year is flying by!

My friend cackle, over at CackleAndHoot is also in the Tin of the Month Club. Check out hers here!

Tea And Treats

This month's Alpha Stamps theme is "Marie takes tea". It's all about Marie Antoinette in gorgeous dresses, plus lots of delicious looking treats. Mmmm!

I constructed a little tea shop, where Marie can pick out the perfect sweets for her afternoon tea with the girls. Marie's so happy, she's strung up some little flags and made a banner. Maybe she'll hang it on the windows of the shop.

 

The shop is constructed from 2" paper maché boxes with lids. I used two boxes for the lower shelves, and a box lid for the upper window.  The "curtains" are actually the skirt I cut off of a figure in the collage sheet. I attached it to a Panniers Dress shape cutout, and added the "Tea Party" heart and the clock. It was fun to adorn the shop with ball fringe and Dresden trim. 

Here's a photo of the back of the shop, where you can see how the dress shape cutout was the perfect shape to support not only the curtains, but also the heart and clock, plus all the little leaves surrounding the clock. You can also see how the flag was attached. I used a bit of E6000 to adhere it up at the top, but because of the ball fringe, I could only attach it at that one spot. To make it stable, I glued a little pink bead to the flat surface of the box and stuck the end of the toothpick flagpole into that bead. 

Look how adorable those little treats are! I gave all the paper treats some sparkly red Stickles accents, and glued a small red seed bead onto the top of each of the cupcakes, which also happen to be beads. The seed beads make perfect little cherries, and fit right into the holes in the cupcakes. I also glued a seed bead to the bottom of the heart shaped tart so it sits at an angle and can be seen more easily.

Here's the showpiece cake in the top window. It has lots of red Stickle cherries, and a little piece of lace serving as a doily. The little Tea Party heart was solid green, so I took a Sharpie marker to it and highlighted the raised areas in black.

What sweet little 3D bows! I used a silicone mold and some paper clay to create them. I painted them pink with little green polka dots, and gave them a coat of glaze to make them nice and shiny.

I was going to have the shop sitting right on the ground, but it really looked better taller, where Marie can reach it properly. My husband helped me cut a little piece of wood and some dowels for legs. I painted the top white (the pom pom trim will cover that) and the legs a nice blue green to match the Dresden trim and Tea Party heart. 

 

One more photo of Marie, so happy with her polka dotted bunting.  How does she stay so thin with all those tempting tarts and cupcakes so readily available?

Hope you can join Marie and me for tea! For a complete list of supplies, click here.

Bunny Boy

I was poking around on Etsy the yesterday and happened upon sweetbestiary, a shop with the cutest little paperclay figurines. I fell in love with the little figures with the animal suits on! There wasn't one with a bunny suit on (my favorite!), so I decided to give it a whirl and make one of my own. I ended up using Apoxie Sculpt for mine, but would probably opt for paperclay if I decided to do another.

Here's my bunny boy, in his little blue polka dot rabbit outfit. Once he was painted, I brushed a little ink on him to age him, and then covered him with some glaze to make him shiny. He fits right in the palm of my hand.

 His puffy blue tail. Obviously, sweetbestiary has me beat in sculpting technique, but I sort of like the wambliness here.

Now where does a little bunny boy like to live?

Cute as a Button: Kitty Photo Holders

This month, everything at Alpha Stamps is cute as a button! I received collage sheets and buttons, and lots of kittens! I had a bunch of 2" wooden blocks, so I set out to make a set of three blocks that would (hopefully) look like they had been played with, and then I added a wire to hold some vintage photos.

To start the project, I painted each block and a wooden wheel a different color, chosen to coordinate with the Sew Lovely 6" paper pad. I sanded all the edges, inked them a bit, and then covered each side with a different paper, cut a little smaller than the side of the block. One side of the blocks got kittens and a couple of buttons, while the reverse side got some adorable children. After I adhered the images, I lightly sanded each one to distress the surface.

I made some good use of my Silhouette Cameo cutter for this project, cutting out the word cat...

...and the numbers 1, 2, and 3 to put on the sides of the blocks.

I also decorated a couple of spools with some of the kitty and heart buttons. That cat on the right cracks me up. He's so excited to be on that spool!

For a complete list of Alpha Stamps supplies, click here.