Halloween luminaries

Hark, the last of the Halloween posts for the year!

I was linked to these Halloween luminaries on Craftster (full blog post within the link).  I loooooved them!  I was a little concerned it would be one of those crafts where the original looks awesome but mine looks, like..well, it would be one of those crafts that I pretend never happened.

But, it wasn't!  The white was the hardest one to get rather dense, and I recommend staying with actual colors.  I grabbed a few small sheets of tissue paper from World Market that were all ripped and torn from separating individual gift boxes, gathering them up from the floor of the store (my husband was not pleased by this).  Even though it was enough paper to do one layer, once the white paper got wet with Mod Podge, that sucker was almost clear.

I was afraid I wasn't being very clever with using original designs, but I finally came up with three to use. (My sister also made 4 of these and I didn't want to do any of the same ones she did.)  Here's what I came up with!

I winged the classic pumpkin face, and got the rest online.  The skeleton was a pain in the you know what and I was glad when it was over.  Because these are rather small and the outline is what matters, they definitely don't need to be perfect (actually, I accidentally cut off one of the ankle bones on the skeleton and taped it back on the leg).  I found it was easier to use scissors instead of an x-acto knife.

I liked that the original luminaries had glitter around the rim, but I ABHOR using glitter (it gets everywhere!!) but I have a small tube of Mod Podge glitter I've been wanting to use, so I put some of that on there.  It's really subtle and something only I notice, but it's the little things in life.

This project was F-R-E-E because they were all things I had on hand, or my sister and mom had tissue paper they weren't using.  You just need jars, tissue paper, black paper and Mod Podge and a brush.  And a hair dryer, if you're impatient like me.  I didn't even have any candles to put in them for most the time but they sure looked cute on my armoir!

Monsta wreaf

Ooga booga!

I could NOT get over this monster wreath when I saw it.  He reminded me of Sully from Monsters, Inc. and I wanted to cuddle it and yell at him, "kitty!"

Alas, I could not find a Sully-esque fur at the fabric store, so I went with my favorite color, purple.  And here's some information.  I wasn't expecting it, but fun fur is EXPENSIVE.  At least I think it's expensive.  Just over one yard (the rest of the roll, and they wouldn't do remnants) cost me $22 (and that was 10% on sale).  The buying of the supplies became kind of a PITA because I had to go to like 4 different stores.  Womp womp.

I tried using Sharpies to fill in the pupils and those ping pong balls sucked the life right out of them.  It was crazy!   Like, I could maybe get two eyes filled in and then the brand new Sharpie would be dead (like 3 of them!).  I ended up using one of those old giant felt tipped permanent markers, but not a Sharpie.

I was told to cut from the back of the fabric and stick close to the actual fabric (instead of just hacking into the fur).  This is good advice!  It helped save my carpet.

When hotgluing, I decided to close up the inner circle first.  This did two things.  One, it made me regret closing up the center first.  Second, it showed me that I didn't like the seam that was visible by just resting the two pieces together.  For the outer circle, I folded over 5-6 inches at a time and would glue it slowly across, folding over the two pieces so that no raw edge was showing.  This took quite a bit longer, but I think the finished product looks much better for it.  (I think a lot of this had to do with the fun fur being so dark.  The white seam was very noticeable compared with the dark purple.)  You can barely see the white seam here:

And the folded over seam here:

I'm very happy with it, and recommend it if you like the look!  Mine is filled with half plastic bags (I needed waaay more than I thought) and pages from a magazine.  This will mostly be an indoor decoration due to the rain here.

Kitty!

Halloween Decor

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

In this town we call home

Everyone hail to the pumpkin song!

-Nightmare Before Christmas

I was very excited when Bkins and I found a duplex to move into. It had been primarily apartment life for us and I was a little tired of it. Stairs? Downstairs neighbors that sound like they're above you? A thing of the past!

This place is perfect except that it is right on a fairly busy street. We have a big beautiful dining room window, but the whole world can see inside when it's open. No one wants to watch Bkins and I stuff our faces with our pants off. That is a privilege very few have taken advantage of. Our street did not need to be a part of that.

I enjoy natural light and hated the idea of keeping our curtains closed all the time. Our neighbor at the time did that and it was kind of depressing, especially since she was really just using sheets. Ick!

Luckily I was able to find my savior in the form of privacy film! This stuff is amazing in that it lets plenty of light through but blocks out anything else! 

Now all this is just a roundabout way of telling you how I used it for our Halloween decorations.

Last year crafty intentions did something similar to what I did and inspired me. Now, I have to tell you hers are perfect, mine however could have used a bit more love. However, being done the day before Halloween I was still happy with it.

The night of Halloween bracken added some of our orange string lights and it made it a little more fun. The shapes are just poster board that's cut and taped up. Again, next year it'll be a little more planned out, but for a last minute thing this was pretty cool.

We even got trick-or-treaters, which is a first for us. Again, apartment life really snubbed us as far as that goes. Not any longer! Next year we're going even further and it will be amazing.

For Christmas we have plans, too, so stay tuned. 

Ursula, Halloween 2012

You'll have your looks, your pretty face.

And don't underestimate the importance of body language, ha!

- Ursula “The Little Mermaid”

Oh Halloween. I’ve missed being a kid, when dressing up and running around to get free candy was totally acceptable; expected even. Alas, as the body ages, and unfortunately, swells, it’s not quite so easy to pull off. Usually I have to work or have no reason to dress up, but luckily this year we had a nice shindig we were invited to. We also had plenty of time to work on a costume so I knew exactly who I wanted to be.

Oh yes, everyone’s favorite sea witch! As a curvy girl she seemed like a lot of fun. She had attitude, crazy make up, and a great rack. Yeah, that’ll work.

First off I wanted to make tentacle that I could wear almost like a skirt. That way they would hang around my legs and I could take them off if necessary. What I did was pretty easy (this isn’t a tutorial, by any means). I cut out three long triangles: two black, one purple. When they’re done getting sewn together I turned them right side out and stuffed them with polyfil and put wire in the ends.

The suckers were just suction cups that were spray painted pink. They did not last very long, unfortunately. I did hot glue them on, but alas they just fell right off anytime they were bumped too hard. it was kind of fun at the party to find them and stick them to people. They never ended up anywhere very appropriate with their shape, but it made for a good laugh.

The rest of the outfit was just a corset, frilly skirt and some black tights. My hair was done with a half bottle of gel and white hair spray. With my thicker hair it was a bit hard to spike it up so I did what I could. I made the mistake of using some pretty cheap makeup so the lipstick didn’t work out for well, or last very long, but the bright blue eye shadow worked out just fine

This picture was taken towards the end of the night, so the hair was going a bit limp, but the rest was working just fine. I did have the beauty mark and bright red lips at the beginning, but alas!

The final bit was her necklace. That was easy enough. I just used polymer clay, baked it and painted it gold. I made sure a hole was formed before it was cooked so that I could string it up.


And ta da, Ursula was complete! Most people were able to guess who I was right off the bat. Even though I took up a lot of room with the tentacles it was worth it and a ton of fun to dress up as!

PS: Bkins (the husband) was just a general zombie killer/survivor. He had lots of blood, a nice big bat, and his airsoft gun, ready to defend us from the undead hordes. It was a very good time. :)

Hulk Hogan, Halloween 2012

Hulk Hogan!  Oh yeah, brother!

In many ways, I feel like a poser dressing up as ole Hulk up there, because I didn't get into professional wrestling until Chyna and The Rock were popular.  I remember when I was into WWF, soon to be WWE.  It was a good year.  Until someone drew nipples on my Chyna notebook at school.

The wig was $6 from Walmart (a little too expensive for the quality, if you get what I'm saying).  I just cut short hair for the sideburns and I don't have any bobby pins so I pinned the hair back with safety pins.  The wig itself was very long (and patchy, good thing I was wearing a bandana) so I just hacked off a couple feet.

The shirt was a large men's shirt from Target, on sale for $5!  I cut those sleeves off and cut a slit in the top, all willy-nilly like.  I wasn't actually going to do the Hulkmania thing, but my man Jesse was like WHAAAAT and he sat down and outlined that sucker in black (well, dark blue) and filled in with red.

I'm a busty girl, so I wore a sports bra, wrapped up the girls with an ace bandage (not too tight -- I did a test run the night before and started to stress out because I couldn't breath), and then used packing tape to put a folded up giant tshirt around my midsection to fill in my waist between my boobs and my gut/hips.  I put a tank top over it to even it out a bit, and then Hulkamania, baby!

The pants were these from Target, and they are mighty hideous!  I mean, I know they're legit workout pants, but they kind of scream "professional wrestler" and that ain't really my bag while I'm working out.  Or is it?

The mustache was created using this tutorial and using leftover hair from the wig.  I used Elmer's glue to stick it to my face, and it held up pretty well for about 2 hours.  Even though I had to drink from a straw.  And at one point a girl came up and asked who I was dressed as, right when I tried to eat a piece of bread with spinach dip on it and I got it all over my mustache. Here's a more close up shot before I trimmed it up a bit.  The first layer of hair I used rubber cement, and the second layer I used Elmer's because of how stringy the rubber cement is and it getting hair all over my bidness.

The boots were based off of this tutorial, and that tutorial is for a little more sturdy-use-more-than-once boots, but I just put my flats in an old pair of argyle socks and Birdy's husband bkins did one layer around those socks.  They did the trick and I'm so glad I came across that tute!  The flats in the "boots" (which are my normal work flats) in a sock were such a perfect idea!

The entire outfit cost $45.50
tshirt: $5
ace bandage: $4.50
duct tape: $5 (would have been even cheaper if I had a Michael's 40% off coupon!)
pants: $25
wig: $6
bandana: already owned

The pants were by far the most expensive part, and I think it's the most lenient part of the outfit since something on hand can be used.  Could easily have done it under $15 if we had already owned some of the items!

Handmaking your own costume can also look so much better than storebought ones (and be cheaper!), like this on Amazon:

He doesn't stand a chance to this guy.

Happy Halloween!