Halloween wreath, cheesecloth ghosts & more

I absolutely love Halloween! For me, it is all about kids dressing up and becoming something or someone else for a short time, trick-or-treat, kids laughing and running from door to door, oodles of candy...but most of all I *love* to decorate the house! So my blog post is all about Halloween and the fun you can have around the house. I also have included two tutorials; Making a wreath and ghosts to decorate with indoors.

This is the bookshelf in our family room. It sits just below our fireplace mantel. I collect these gorgeous candle stands all year long and noticed they have a cool kind of "Gothic" look when grouped with Halloween decor. Note the toy eyeball in the pumpkin and the black, fuzzy, FAKE mouse on top of Mr. Pumpkin Head. I found those realistic mice at Walmart for $1.00 each! I bet you can guess what's lurking in the shadows of my home.

Here is a tutorial for a wreath I made last weekend. It cost under $10.00 to make.

Supplies you will need:
Grapevine wreath, black spray paint, feathers, glue gun, glue sticks and some type of embellishment. (I chose those plastic toy eyeballs...only because I have all boys! LOL)

-First, protect your surface under the grapevine wreath and spray paint it using black paint. I painted mine out in our garage and let it dry over night.
-Next, I started adding one feather at a time and continued to fill in the wreath until it was full of black feathers.

-I added an occasional orange feather and finished off the wreath by adding the plastic eyeballs.
-Aside from the spray paint dry time, the wreath took me about 1 hour to complete.
-I have to get a waterproof spray because our wreath is on the outside door of our home.

Next up is a tutorial for creating cheesecloth ghosts. I remember my mom always had these around our house when I was growing up. For whatever reason, it was one of those childhood memories that came back to me this year. So I set out to find cheesecloth and liquid starch!
!
Supplies you will need: Liquid starch, cheesecloth (I found mine in the fabric dept of Walmart), paper towel tube, sticks/dowels/pencils, foil to create the head and googly eyes from the craft dept. You can also use empty water bottles, toilet paper tubes, etc. for the tall part of the body.

-First, build your body form for the ghost. It can be as rough form as mine, below. After you're done, the "guts" will be removed and you will be left with a cast of the shape. So fear not, no one will see the tube, pencils and foil.
-I taped my ghost form down by cutting small slits in the paper towel tube, folding them backwards and taping those tabs to an old box. Again, I did this out in my garage because liquid starch is a bit messy.
-Pour liquid starch into an old container

-Cut strips of cheesecloth to fit over the top of your form and that will lay over top of your ghost head and dangle onto the floor. This is important because having the base of the ghost touching the surface while drying is how the ghost will stand on its own, later.
-Dip the cheesecloth into the starch and wring out the excess.

-Repeat this step several times until you can no longer see through the body. I believe mine took about 5-6 layers.

-Allow the ghost to dry for at least a full 24 hours. Mine took a little more because it was a little cooler outside in the garage.
-After the ghost is dry, remove the form from the inside of the ghost. He will stand all on his own now!
Here is another look at the finished ghost. I added little googly eyes to his face but you could leave it blank if you'd like. They look just as cute. :)


Confession: I broke down and made some homemade Carmel apples last weekend, too! These things are my weakness and so easy to do.

Lastly, a card I made using a stamp from Stampendous. I didn't have a funny stamp with saying/greeting that went with the image stamp so I printed my own from the computer.

Supplies: Stamp: Stampendous; Ink: Versafine; Cardstock: Bazzill Bling, DCWV; patterned paper: BoBunny; Punch:Fiskars border punch; Pens & pencils: PrismaColor pencils, Sakura gel and glaze pens

I hope something here will inspire you to take part in the fun, whimsical, light-hearted Halloween decorating & crafting. (I tend to avoid the scary side of Halloween) LOL :-) Happy crafting! -Stacey