Halloween Home Tour

My ten year old daughter says yesterday, "It hurt so bad! It's like a ghost came up and tased me!" 

Hmmmm. I can totally relate. 

No, I can't. 

She was referring to...a paper cut.

Not even sure how she knows what a taser is. Probably listening in the car to the Walton and Johnson Taser Report with her Dad, which is probably not appropriate for kids.

But it is pretty funny.

Now on to the Home Tour. Where you won't find any ghosts. Or tasers. 

As much as I hate the TV above the fireplace, it just had to be placed there. I decided to opt for more seating, so the only blank wall has a chair and cobbler's bench. You can see the post for how to make the BOO banner here.

I got the old books from the FREE bins outside the new store in town called 2nd and Main and just tore off the covers. They are vampire books, which is cool for Halloween, but no one will ever notice. Mwah mwah. On the candlestick, I layered more copper scrubber from Dollar Tree over the black netting that was formerly packaging for mini skulls and added a silvery pumpkin on top.

                  

Here is a secret I learned from my days as a Display Designer for Stage Department Store. (Yea, I got to dress the mannequins, too. Pretty fun job. Except the part where you have to carry a REALLY tall ladder around the store without taking out any customers.) 

Your items should form a triangle. 

                                       

If your display seems a little blah, it may be that all of your objects are too similar in height and you can't place them in a triangle formation. It they are all tall, or all small, it just isn't as pleasing to the eye.

My daughter loves this witchy Halloween vignette on the cobbler's bench my husband's grandfather made. She read the potion book and added her own touches like the poison apple that she took a bite of , mummy dust in the vintage vials from my father-in-law's days as a Chemistry teacher, and old hag's cackle (aka red kool-aid.)  Of course, every good witch needs apothecary jars and drawers full of creepy things like skulls, scorpions, and centipedes (also from Dollar Tree). EEK!

I found an old book with an orange cover and black spine at Goodwill to make the witch's potion book. Tim Holtz distress ink was used to make it look old after spray gluing the printed spell pages over the book pages. This idea came from g*rated with a printable.

It's not Halloween without pumpkins and big ole spiders. Especially glittery and gold leaf pumpkins.

These metal spiders look like the ones in the Pottery Barn catalog, except I only had to pay $4 for these because I found them at Ross. Preeeetttty excited about that.

Here is where the chalkboard lives from an earlier post and even earlier post. And you can see the tutorial for the skull centerpiece here.

This display is a little bit of lagniappe (a little something extra.) I had a small brass tray that I found at Goodwill for $3, another pewter goblet from Goodwill stuffed with old dictionary crinkle paper topped with a Dollar Tree pumpkin, a raven also from Dollar Tree, and miniature flags that I made years ago.

Don't tase me, Bro!!

Linked up at snapcreativity.com and 3boysandadog.com and knickoftime.com and www.wecallitjunkin.com.

A Banner For a Baby

This banner was much cuter in person, but you can only do so much with a cell phone camera. This actually turned out to be one of my favorite banners ever. I used a Tim Holtz mask on tags to distress the letters of the baby's name. The set of alphabet masks came with different fonts which I like.

Above the table, I hung some grapevine and Chinese lanterns. These are easy to make. I have a tool, but I remember making these in elementary school. If you could look closely at the paper design, there are some crowns on some. Since we did not really have a certain theme, I used my Slice machine (am I the only one that has one of these?) to cut some large crowns in the same paper to put sort of like confetti on the tables. No pictures of those, sorry.

(This is the teacher's lounge at school, not my house. It was decorated nicely by some of the staff, but the ceiling sure is ugly.) 

Twelve Days of Christmas Tags

Christmas.  The season of giving.  I saw an advent calendar at www.janethopkins.com that inspired me to make tags for the twelve days of Christmas to attach to gifts for my little girl's teacher.

Every day until we get off of school for the holidays, she will receive a small gift and a handmade tag.  I found gifts for under $5 each like a can of Altoids or poinsettia mini kleenex.

I love how they look all together on my crib spring.  (Should've made myself a set.  But that is a lot of glittering, folks. I highly recommend doing all of the glittering at one time.  But I never think of these things ahead of time.  No, I cut out all but two of the figures with my Slice machine.  Then, glittered those.  Then, made those tags.  THEN decided to cut the rest and glitter and now my studio is officially full of bling.)

I think the number 11 tag is my favorite. I used old dictionary paper glued to the tag and ripped off the edges after it dried.  I like how it worked out that the church is in the background.  The edges of most tags were distressed with Tim Holtz green or tea inks. This one was spritzed with olive glimmer mist. For those of you that can't read blurry stamping, the red says "Pipers Piping".  I think I am definitely going to invest in a better red stamp pad.  This one was not dark enough and blurred on the paper.  Not cool.

paperissues.com

Crib Spring Bulletin Board

I have been wanting to do this, but I can't always get into my attic, because my husband's boat is in the way.  But I finally got him to move it and convinced him that it would be a good idea to hang a big, rusty, metal spring on the new walls of my studio.  (Not easy.)

This look is not for everyone, I am sure.  Some of the springs are rusty.  It takes up a lot of space.  But those are things that I like about it.

I like having a place to put all of those little tags and such that I think are too cute to throw away.  Sometimes, they inspire me to make my own tags. 

But, it can also hold a whole catalog if I want it to.  Love that!  See that Anthropologie catalog?  That was our (my sisters and mom) inspiration for the vintage circus themed baby shower for my sister. Coming Soon!!  Wait until you see the invitations!  Sooooo cute!

I used Tim Holtz mini hinge clips.  I had a hard time finding hinge clips.  I found big ugly plastic ones.  I found expensive ones with magnets on the back.  Didn't need that.  I thought Tim made some, but couldn't find them at Hobby Lobby or Michael's.  I finally thought to check Amazon, and there they were.  Perfect!  I love the color, love the size, love the price. Not a bad deal at all. 

Travel Scrapbook Page

For our tenth anniversary, my husband took me to Jefferson, Texas to stay in a bed and breakfast and go on a ghost tour.

We also went to a bunch of antique stores, which he said were "just a bunch of nu-nu."  Translation:  a lot of junk nobody would buy at a garage sale and not much fun to look at.  The one store that had good stuff had a hot chocolate pot that was really cool until I saw the tag.  $500.  That one stayed in the store.

This page was quick and easy, except that I had to paint the letters for the title.  All papers are from a Travel Kit by Creating Keepsakes.  Suitcase eyelet is from the Eyelet Outlet.  The stars are Tim Holtz Grungeboard.  I wish I could remember who makes the chipboard letters, but I have had them forever.  The paint color on them is called "shopping bag" by Making Memories.  I used foam dots to make some of the letters in the title pop out.

Linking up at http://bellichallenge.blogspot.com/.

Christmas Joy

So the lighting is terrible in this picture, but these cards are really sparkly and pretty.  I found an ornamental font at http://www.houseoflime.com/ and printed them large on cardstock.  Then I used Tim Holtz pine distress ink, a couple spritzes of red Tattered Angels Gimmer Mist and some shimmery bronze Glimmer Mist.  These were fun and easy to make.  Perfect for the three florist frogs I recently found for a steal at an antique shop.  You could also stand them up in place card holders or even upside down binder clips.