Handmade Halloween Happiness!

I’ve always loved holidays. Around the Murray house, any holiday is a good excuse to fix up the house, dress up the kids (and me!), and whip up some good food. Halloween is no exception, and I’ve spent a lot of that “dress up” time coming up with some fun costumes for my kids and myself. In fact, it’s been a sort of challenge to see what I can come up with each year. 

I think it all started when I was a kid. Back then, there weren’t so many ready made costumes…just the plastic masks that had cutouts for your eyes and even tinier holes for your nose and mouth. My mom would often buy us the mask (they didn’t cost that much) and then make our costumes to go with it. The earliest one I remember was (I think) either a Cinderella or Snow White mask, and my mom took an old curtain, some glue, and silver glitter and turned it into a cape.  I was a princess! But I actually have a photo of one that’s even older…me in a white-haired wig.  I wasn't even a year old yet, and I have no idea what I was supposed to be. Later, someone made matching clown costumes for my aunt and me and we just continued the tradition until it was time to make costumes for my own kiddos.

 

Making your own costumes does NOT have to be hard, and believe it or not, it very rarely even requires any sewing. One of my most famous costumes (or maybe I should say “infamous”) was the zebra outfit I wore to work one year. It was HOURS before anyone figured out who I was, and so I won the prize for best costume. All it took was a zebra stripe Uni-tard, black boots, black gloves, some black and white face paint, and a banana hair clip – all of which I already owned.

My daughter loves homemade costumes as much as I do. When she was a child, I once rolled her hair in curlers, slathered on white face-paint, dressed her in PJs and a robe with house shoes and called her a “Housewife”, complete with rolling pin. She’s also been a princess, a bug, a fairy, a mouse, a witch, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, a cheerleader, a clown, a gypsy, a hippie, and a punk rocker (twice). 

 My son has been a bunny, the devil, a pumpkin, a “California Raisin”, the Karate Kid, a soldier (after 9/11), a vampire, a Dickens-esque ghost, and a musketeer, but one of our favorites was the year after the Olympics when he dressed as Michael Phelps, including 7 shiny gold medals.

 

The internet (and especially sites like Pinterest), has really been a great resource for finding ideas for homemade costumes. It’s a lot of fun, to see how much detail you can add using things you already have. I’m trying to decide what I want to be this year when I open the door for all my neighborhood trick or treaters. How about you? Share your costume ideas in the comments, or start a discussion over in our Crafty Neighbor Facebook discussion group: Crop and Craft Events.

Until then, Happy Hauntings!

Cindy

Happy Hauntings!

After a day in Honduras, today we are visiting our second port, which is Belize City, Belize.  Today I have a treat for you.  Actually, a Trick or Treat of sorts, because our pillow gifts last night were a little spooky.

For our Halloween night of Cruising Through the Year, I made this little haunted house using the milk carton cut on the Close to My Heart Artiste Cricut cartridge.  Many of the other elements on these haunted cartons also came from Cricut cartridges, too.  A complete list of supplies can be found below.

One little note if you try to assemble one of these for yourself…I didn’t want my haunted house to look like a milk carton, so I worked in a couple of extra folds that are not marked on the Cricut cut.  I have made a video of the assembly process which I will post on this blog some time in the near future.  Until then, I’m hoping the photo below will demonstrate the extra folds.

Supplies:

Stampin’ Up Card stock:

Basic Black

Rich Razzleberry

Real Red

Pumpkin Pie

Daffodil Delight

Old Olive

Pacific Point

Whisper White

Cricut Cartridges:

George and Basic Shapes:  window

Handyman:  fence

Simply Charmed:  ghost, tombstone, bat

Close to My Heart – Art Philosophy: window frame

Close to My Heart – Artiste: milk carton

Punches:

Stampin’ Up 1-3/8” Cricle:  candy dispenser

Stampin’ UpPetite Curly Label Punch: “Lift”

Stampin’ UpWord Window: doorstep

EK Success Deco Scallop:  Roof

Martha Stewart Drippy Goo border:  windows

Stamps:

Stampin’ Up Googly Ghouls

Embossing Folders:

Stampin’ Up Square Lattice embossing folder

Button Magnets:

Basic Grey

The lid on this little treat box lifts up to reveal a hole where you can fill it with candies.  I suggest wrapped candies like Tootsie Rolls or Jolly Ranchers, etc. that will fit through the hole easily.  The lid attaches to the house a a very steep angle, and although it is glued down on one side, the side that opened had a tendency to pop up.  My solution was to use mini pancake magnets made by Basic Grey.  Two magnets go on the inside of the house on either side of the hole.  Their counterparts go behind a strip of paper on the underside of the roof.  I tried this with velcro and other fasteners, but they wound up pulling off or tearing the paper, so the magnets worked best, and only when they were separated by paper so that they could be pulled apart without tearing the paper or coming unglued.

There are a couple of items I cannot remember where they came from.  One is the skull stamp.  It was part of a mini-pack of stamps I bought for $1 somewhere.  I think the spiderweb came from there, too.  If I could find the package, I could figure out who made it, but it has somehow disappeared!  Two other items, the window frame and the pumpkin, were both Cricut cuts, but I did all my design work on the Gypsy and now I can’t figure out which cartridge it came from!  If I figure it out, I will update this post.  The door was just a rectangle with a brad for a doorknob.

That’s it for today.  I know this little house is a bit out of season, but we are cruising through the year with our pillow gifts, and next up is Thanksgiving.  I hope you enjoyed today’s project and don’t forget to come back tomorrow!

Really ugly photo showing which score marks to add/omit. Click to zoom.

Addendum 1/1/14:  
Woo hoo!  I found my little Halloween stamps that I used to make the spiderweb and the skull.  It was a "Studio G" clear stamp, Series 34.  Here's a picture of the stamp set:

All Treats, No Tricks!

Welcome to Crafty Neighbor’s “Neighborhood Gossip” blog, a proud participant in the “All Treats, No Tricks Blog Hop”!  To start at the beginning of the hop, please visit The Little Blue House where you can learn how you can win one of 11 FABULOUS PRIZES.

For those of you visiting my little blog for the first time, please allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Cindy Murray, and I am the owner of Crafty Neighbor and Crafty Neighbor Travel.

I often call myself an event organizer, but really, Crafty Neighbor is so much more than that.  I host crops, retreats, classes, workshops, and even scrapbooking cruises and garage sales, but my real mission is to bring crafters together and support the scrapbooking and paper-crafting industries by providing fun and unique opportunities to learn new techniques, scrapbook at different venues, and meet new friends.  I also run this blog, which I like to view as a source of news, tips, tricks, and inspiration for scrapbooking and paper-crafting of all kinds. 

Since the topic of this blog hop is “All Treats, No Tricks”, I thought I would share a couple of Halloween treat holders with you today.  These are both really simple projects, and require very little supplies.  They’re great for party favors or to surprise your coworkers.  I filled them with my favorite treat, Reese’s Cups.

The small holder is super simple and made from a 6” x 6” square of double-sided paper using Stampin’ Up’s Simply Scored Diagonal Plate.  The instructions are available for download by clicking here.

The other two boxes are variations of the Criss-Cross Box created by Nicole Heady for PaperTrey Ink.  You can find Nicole’s box on her blog, and you can download her template there as well. 

For the spider box, I just put my treats directly inside the box, but I also wanted to show you how to make the box work for smaller candies, too, by using a clear cellophane treat bag.  Just put the bag in the box, fill with your favorite candies, and close with a pull-tab or twist tie.

Tip: I used Stampin' Up's Tiny Tag punch to make my "Boo" tag.
It's easier to punch the hole for your string before you punch your tag!

I hope you liked my projects.  If you would like to see some of my previous posts and projects, scroll down to the “Blog Archives” on the left, or you can search for posts by specific topics just below that.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think!  You can also find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/craftyneighbor, on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/c1ndyluhu/, or on the web at http://www.craftyneighbor.com.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today!  Be sure to subscribe using one of the links on the left to be eligible to win one of our awesome prizes!  My contribution will be a

$50 gift certificate
and a grab-bag of embellishments!

Now, hop on over to the Very Vintage Retreat, to collect your next treat!

Thrifty Thursday

Sometimes I come across a thrifty idea for budget-minded scrappers like me, so I thought I might start up a “Thrifty Thursday” post now and then.  This week, I stumbled across an unusual place to purchase “bling”…the grocery store!

Yep, you read that right, I bought bling for my scrapbooks at the grocery store.  What I actually found was this cute Halloween pumpkin decoration.  Priced at just $3.99, it’s a lot cheaper than anything equivalent I could get at a local craft or hobby store. 

This got me to thinking…maybe there are some hidden scrapbooking gems in the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day decorations, too!

Do you have an idea for Thrifty Thursday?  Send me an email at Thrifty@craftyneighbor.com.  If your tip is used on my blog, I’ll reach into my prize vault and send you a little goodie.