Fan Pumpkin Garland

Here is a simple and cute garland that can be made in 30 minutes.

My daughters thought they looked great hanging across our walkway arch and I am excited to share them with you.

This is one craft that you can do with the kids, it will probably be easiest if you do the prep work first, then have the kiddos join you.

MATERIALS/SUPPLIES
Construction Paper {cardstock or patterned paper}
Pipe Cleaners {orange and green}

NOTE: I did green paper and pipe cleaners so I could try them both out and see which one I liked better for the stem.

TOOLS
Wire snips
Tiny hole punch {I used a Provo Craft Silent Setter that has 3 sizes of punches}
Paper cutter

INSTRUCTIONS
Cut the paper into strips. I did 6"x1/2" and 8"x3/4".

Roll the green paper around a pen or pencil. Find a way to secure it. This will add a spiral to the stem.

Cut the pipe cleaners. I cut a few different lengths so I could test them out and see which one I liked.

Punch a hole at either end of the orange strips and one end of the green srips.

TIP: To do larger pumpkins I would suggest using a thicker paper, like cardstock. The paper strips started to get saggy the longer the pumpkin was hanging on the garland.

TIP: If you have little kids who want to help, I would suggest getting all the prep and cutting done first, then have them join you. wink, wink.

Grab eight {8} small orange strips or 12 larger orange strips, line up the ends and feed either end of the pipe cleaner through the holes on either ends of the paper strips.

Put a little roll and fold in the bottom of the pipe cleaner {it will keep the paper strips from coming off}. Add the green spiral piece of paper of paper to the top then roll and fold the top of the pipe cleaner.

Now fan out the paper strips to create a full circle.

To hang them on the twine garland take the top of pipe cleaner that has been folded over and hook it onto the twine.

TaDa!!!! Done and Done.

Hang them as garland or us them on a shelf as a display.

Share your fan pumpkin with me on Instagram. Be sure to tag me in your post and add #FanPumpkin

I tried doing a pumpkin with double the amount of strips and I did not like it as much for this project. You can use the picture above to see what they looked like.

Lady A's Birthday Outfit

I wanted to get some pictures for Lady A's birthday with the wonderful fall colors out here in New England. Since I am not too familiar with the area I had a friend come with me. I love this little out-fit and even more excited about the top.

This is my first re-purpose design and I could not be more please with how it turned out.

After all day shopping I finally found everything I was looking for: Boots, skirt and a top. The top was a tank top, size 2T, it was too big and too cold for her to wear it so I had to do a little work to it.

First I cut the ruffle off around the bottom. I wasn't too worried about the bottom of the shirt rolling or fraying since her pictures were going to be done the next day but you can roll the bottom once or twice to put a hem at the bottom of the shirt.

I took the extra ruffles and used them to make sleeves and a piece to the front to make it go a little higher.

For the cap sleeves I cut two pieces about 6" long. Look at the picture to see where I have drawn a dotted line. After lining up the center of the 6" ruffle to the top o the shoulder I pinned the rest of the sleeve lining up the invisible line with the seem of the arm hole. Then I simply sewed right along the existing seem. 

I used some extra material, felt and mesh material to add a little flare dress up the cute little shirt and match her hair clip I made

I am sorry to say that Lady A dropped the camera so all the photos to go along with this tutorial were lost. There will be plenty of other re-purposed shirt tutorials but here are some photos of the our little girl in her fun little birthday outfit.

 She was NOT going to give up her blanket!

Halloween Yarn Wreath

This is my first wreath I have attempted and am so excited to do more. I have seen a lot of yarn wreaths and love how they look so I wanted to try my own hand at it.

I have seen some tutorials where it has been suggested to use a straight piece of pipe foam and then use something like duct tape to bring the two ends together. This would definitely make wrapping the yarn around a lot easier but over time the pipe foam will start to slip. If you are planning on only using the wreath or other project for a one time display I would suggest using that but if you want your craft to last, just spend the time, buckle down and use a round foam wreath.

{Please excuse the photos. My daughter broke my camera so I have had to use my phone camera and Photoshop tricks to get photos up for the blog.}

Materials:
Foam circle
Yarn (1-3 colors of your choice)
Ribbon 6" x 1/4"
Felt to match yarn
Glitter (1-3 colors of your choice)
Hot glue gun
ModPodge

Hot glue about 1.5" of one end  of the ribbon to the back. Glue down the yarn on the inside of the ribbon. To help with winding the yarn I put the yarn onto yarn balls, it really helped lot.

I turned the wreath so the right side was facing me. Then sparsely wind the under colors to the left about 6", back to the right and left again. Now wind the black (top) yarn around the foam. As you wind over the first two colors leave little spaces to let the purple and grey peek through.

Hint: As working the sections, to keep the yarn tight, use the glue gun to hold the yarn in place at the end of the section.

It will take some time, but stick with it. Soon enough you'll have the whole thing done.

The rosettes:

Cut a 4.5" x 4.5" square then round out the corners. Now cut a round in a spiral leaving a round piece in the center about the size of a quarter. I like to make it a little wavy, this way as the rosette is wound up the flower will have some dimension to it. {Do the same with creating a 2.5" x 2.5" square.}

Mix the glitter (if using more than one color) in a little pile on a piece of paper.

Use your finger or tongue depressor to place little dots of ModPodge around the outside edges of the of the felt cut spiral. Dip in glitter while still wet.

Hint: Once the ModPodge is dry I took the spiral piece of felt and shock off the excess outside.

Starting from the outside tail of the spiral roll the felt and use the glue gun to secure the quarter size center to the bottom of the rosette.

Glue the rosettes in place where you want to.

Draw out a simple bat, cut it out of card stock {scrap paper} laying around then use it as a template to cut a bat out of the black felt.

String two pieces of yarn across the back of the wreath and use the Glue gun to hold in place and secure the bat in a desired location.

Monster Mash ~ Halloween Party Invite

Here is another fun Halloween Invite.

I enjoy the play of the Halloween colors of black and orange. Fall is such a fun time to gather with friends and family. What better way to get a group together than a costume party.

Final dimension of the card is 6x6 inches or 5x5 inches when matted on black card stock. Each card is finished with eyelets and grass twine. Card stock and font colors can also be changed.

If you like the design but need a different theme leave me a comment or visit my ETSY shop and send me a convo.

6x6 cards are $1.75/ea

5x5 cards are $1.25/ea
Minimum quantity order of 10 cards

Party Invitations for Halloween

Today has been fun. I spent some time designing some Halloween cards. I know we design them early so that we can be sure to get them online and available ~ but now I am so excited for a Halloween party. When my husband came home I told him about ideas for a party, he just looked at me like I was crazy.

When it comes time to choose one to use for our own party, I don't know which one I'll go with. I like them both for different reasons but I also started a couple others that I'm pretty excited about too. Good thing I have time to choose.

Ever since my seventh grade art class
I have loved Yellow and Purple together.

This one was inspired by a picture of drift wood (more like drift tree)
and the Hill of Crosses!

ENJOY!!

Paper Mache Masks

Another activity we did over the weekend was paper mache masks.

For the YW activity we have this week we are doing the masks and it was my job to research it and figure out how to make them. So I spent some time on YouTube. With my niece an nephew this past weekend I wanted to try out mask making and see how it went. I also wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing so I could make any adjustments if I needed too. After a number of videos and recipes I actually decided I wanted to try plaster bandages, unfortunately we could not find them at ANY of the craft stores we checked.

What you will need:
We went with 2 cups flour and 1 1/2 cups water with about 1 tsp of salt for the plaster ~ just mix it all together. We then tour a bunch of strips ~ about 1x4 ~ from newspaper. We also got some white printer paper so the last layer would be white and it would be easier to paint.

How you do it:
To start you need to COVER you face with petroleum jelly. This will make it easier to get the mask off your face and keep your hair from getting stuck in the plaster. Now you need to dip the paper strips in the plaster and make sure to get both sides. I would then run my fingers down both sides to make sure and get the excess off. If too much is left on it will take a lot longer to dry. Then we let it dry ~ we helped it dry faster by using a blow dryer and holding the button for cool air. Then you repeat and add another layer. All the things I found said to do 4-5 layers but we were working with a 4 and 8 year old so we kept it to 3. For the third layer we did the white printer paper. After it had a chance to dry and stiffen up enough, we took the masks off and let them dry over night. In the morning we trimmed them to how the kids wanted them and after church we painted them.

Because these masks were not too thick I was able to use a hole punch and put a hole on both sides by the ears where we tied on some ribbon. The pieces were long enough to pull to the back of the head and tie the mask on.

The making off.
It was my nieces idea to pose like that under the bed.

Designing!!

Spider Man and Batman in one!

Ta Da!!!

My nephew loves Spider Man but the whole sticker would not fit on
so he put the leg and that is what you see in the middle of his forehead.

They absolutely loved them, which made me happy. They could not wait until their mom came to pick them up so they could show off their masks.

New Digital Cards

It's been a long time coming to post these. Things have gotten a bit crazy around here. I spent about a week getting ready for and then attended the H.O.P.E Festival last Wednesday. On Halloween I ended up in the ER needing a surgery (at 10 p.m.). Needless to say it has been a long couple of weeks.

I made these cards for my cousins son. He was actually having an baptism on Halloween so they wanted something festive but not too much so. The information is easily changeable so I came up with a Halloween Party Invite. Adding a card for directions is always a good way to make sure everyone knows where to go.