Pinthetic?

I think the only thing more popular these days than Pinterest is the number of blogs about Pinterest projects gone awry. 

I'm shamelessly jumping on this bandwagon because unfortunately I spend a lot of time on Pinterest.  I wish I didn't, but then again I wish I didn't have to suck in my gut and lay flat on the bed every time I put on my favorite jeans either. However I'm finding my willpower is just as weak when it comes to sweet DIY pins, as it is when a Little Debbie snack is within arm's reach. . . . Anyway, my point is that I might as well make something productive out of all those wasted hours online - and why not turn my inevitable Pinterest project failures (or maybe even a rare success) into blog content?

That being said, today I'm launching my first Pinterest project blog post - aptly named: "Pinthetic?" (because I like to try and be clever -  and "Pintastrophe" was already taken). 

Let's start with my Pinterest inspiration:

 

Just look at this spooky eyeball wreath!  Perfect for Halloween right? I thought it was a great mixture of scary and gross and whimsical.  I couldn't wait to put one together and hang it on my front door. 

When I found plastice eyeballs at the Dollar Tree I knew that me and this wreath were meant to be.  I got my eyeballs, my glue gun, my grapevine wreath that I had spray painted black and I got . . . this:



It's not horrible right?  I mean it kind of looks like the original.  My eyeballs were smaller than hers, plus they didn't have the cool red veins and stuff on them that really made the original pop.   Oh, and you see those gaps here and there. Yeah, that's where my eyeballs popped off after the hot glue had dried and the cat batted them underneath the furniture and I just didn't have the energy to try and find them.

The original Pin showed the wreath hanging in front of a distressed window with chicken wire in it. Now if Pinterest has taught me anything it's that everything looks better hanging in front of distressed wood and chicken wire.  See below:

without distressed wood and chicken wire:

with distressed wood and chicken wire:

But unfortunately I didn't have any distressed wood or chicken wire lying around. I tried hanging it on my front door but it just looked really kind of sad.  Like some mentally challenged (oh sorry, it's "Intelectually Disabled" now) person had ranomly glued ping pong balls on a wreath.  So I ended up hanging it on the garage - which nobody can see from the street.  It's my eyeball wreath of shame.

What do you think?  How Pinthetic is it?

Shark Treat Bag Tutorial

I've been busy gearing up for Halloween over at my place. Let's just say that it's a good thing that fake spiderwebs and paper cutouts are cheap because I tend to go a little overboard! And speaking of cheap. Check out this adorable shark treat bag that I whipped up out of some inexpensive felt.

Now, if this cute little shark treat bag looks familiar, that's because it was inspired by a product in a well known store catalog. I won't say which catalog, but I will say that it rhymes with Lottery Yarn. Let me just say (so I can't possibly be sued) that this bag was made completely by me, from a pattern I drew up myself which was inspired by a product that I saw, only visually. I do not intend to sell this product, nor the pattern and I'm sharing it freely for people to use solely for personal use.


Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's get started. You'll only need a few supplies:

Felt: I just bought small craft sheets of grey and white felt for the teeth and gums, but you'll need to buy it off the bolt for the body of the shark, 1/2 yard should be sufficient.
Basic sewing supplies: scissors, thread, sewing machine etc.
This pattern: Click here to view
Cut out the pattern pieces. In addition you'll need to cut the following:
2 strips of blue (or main color) for the handle: 16 inches by 1 1/2 inches
2 strips of grey (or gum color): 1 inch by 9 inches, and 1 inch by 12 inches
2 strips of white (or teeth color): 1 1/2 inches by 8 1/2 inches, and 1 1/2 inches by 11 1/2 inches

Now these pictures will seem odd because the bag is already mostly assembled. However, I learned the hard way that it's much easier to add the eyes and gill embellishments before assembly than after. So I would suggest that you do those first.

I simply sewed the black felt eyes on to the main head pieces and then marked chalk lines where I wanted the gills, and stitched a small tight zigzag.

Once this is done, take your two fin pieces and sew them together. Turn them right side out.


Sandwich the fin in between the two head pieces in the spot indicated on the pattern. So you'll have the head pieces right sides together with the fin in between.

Sew the side seams.

Turn the bag right side out and your shark is already taking shape (remember that your piece will already have the eyes and gills on at this stage).

Now, let's work on the teeth. Overlap the white strips with the grey gum strips. They should overlap by about a 1/2 inch. Sew in place.

Cut your teeth shapes. I just freehanded this but you could make a template if you prefer. I rounded the teeth but if you want a more realistic shark you could certainly make them smaller and pointier. Notice how the gum strips are slightly longer. I rounded the edges of the gums with my scissors so they would recede into the mouth.

Before we can attach the teeth to the head, we need to assemble the strap. Lay your two 1.5 inch by 16 inch strips on top of each other and stitch together.

Now place the strap directly on the edge of the shark's top lip, at the seam. Place the longer set of teeth/gums on top of the strap and pin along the upper lip. Sew in place.

The bottom teeth are a little trickier because you'll need to bring the strap over and around underneath the bottom teeth. See picture for a better explanation. Be careful not to twist the strap when pinning it in.

Once you have the strap and teeth in place it's a good idea to top stitch along the top and bottom lip of your shark to keep your teeth from wanting the fold back on themselves. I topstitched with a contrasting thread so you could see it, but you'll want to use a matching thread color.

Now all that's left is to turn your bag right sides in, sew on the bottom and then turn right side out.

Then you're done! Enjoy.

A Halloween Graveyard Terrarium, or, Are two spinal columns considered overkill?

I love terrariums, I love Halloween, and I love miniature dioramas. Never have all three of these things come together so well, as in this graveyard mini terrarium display.

I wish I had come up with the concept myself, but I got the idea from silvia-chenault.blogspot.com. I've included the link here, but as of the time of this post, her blog has been removed. However, I must give credit where credit is due for her great idea.

Want to make one of your own? You just need a few basic supplies:

-Floral Moss
-Black decorative sand (or if you're into realism you could just use dirt)
-Skeletons
-A container (I used a clear plastic display case I found on sale at a craft store but any clear container would work)
-Materials for headstones (I used cardboard and paint)
-twigs and black spray paint (optional)


First, prepare your skeletons by hacking them to peices with a pair of scissors.

Then cut out some headstone shapes. I just used some heavy cardboard pieces that I had lying around, but you could use small scraps of wood or whatever you have on hand.

Paint your headstones to look old and moss covered. I just used regular acrylic craft paint.

Then assemble your terrarium/diorama/morbid graveyard scene. Pour black sand in the bottom to simulate the dirt, add in your various skeleton pieces, your headstones and cover with moss.

I felt I needed some height in mine so I gathered some twigs out of the backyard and painted them black really quick with a few quick squirts of spray paint, then I stuck them in the sand to look like an old dead tree.

I played around a lot with placement. It's a fine line between, "artistic decomposing human remains" and "gory gratuity". One extra ribcage could mean the difference between art and excess.

I'm happy with it for now but plan on perhaps adding a rickety wrought iron graveyard fence by cutting one out of black cardstock and putting it up against the back of the container. Maybe I'll add some faux cobwebs in the tree or a shifty eyed little raven.

I had toyed with the idea of making it an actual live terrarium, but didn't want to go to the trouble of finding headstone options that would withstand the moisture, but considering I usually kill live terrariums anyway, it probably would have been a great effect!

I hope this inspires you to create your own mini vessel of rot and senseless Halloween gore.

Black Spray Paint Halloween

Things are going a little more smoothly around my place lately. My cold is gone, the laptop is back and functional (with no lost data!) and things are running so smoothly that the kids and I found some time to do some Halloween decorating.

So I whipped out the black spray paint and we went to town.

I sprayed a styrofoam egg carton black and then we cut it up and used it for the bodies of some pretty cute/scary spiders. These were lots of fun. The kids decorated them with a little paint of their own, and we added the pipe cleaner legs and of course the googly eyes. We had a lot of fun with the eyes. I think my favorite is the cyclops spider. I threaded some string through the top and we hung them around the house.


Then we located a sufficiently spooky branch from the backyard, painted it black, draped it with fake spiderwebs and stuck a couple black crows from the dollar store on it.

Granted, it might be a little spookier without the speakers behind it, but let's face it, life without surround sound would be even scarier - or at least my husband would think so.

So we were all set for Halloween and then . . . it snowed.

Thankfully it only stayed around for a couple hours.

Halloween Grab Bags

I love Halloween. It’s a pretty close second behind Christmas as my favorite holiday and is only trailed slightly by my 3rd favorite; Talk like a Pirate Day (Aaaargh!) Anyway, since my son is in preschool now I have the opportunity to flex my Halloween gift giving muscles and I came up with the idea of sending him to school with little Halloween treat bags for each of his classmates.

I didn’t want to send him with candy as I figure the kids will find plenty of opportunities to rot their teeth without my help, so I came up with this:
I purchased Halloween pencils at the dollar store as well as plastic Halloween rings. Within each ring is a rolled up joke (preschool appropriate of course) in case they need some help finding the perfect joke to add to their trick or treat arsenal.


The piece de resistance however is the cute little finger puppet bats. I got this idea from Domesticali who generously shared a tutorial on making these little guys on her website. I made mine from plain felt instead of wool felt since that's what I had on hand.


Aaron helped me stamp some brown paper lunch bags with Halloween rubber stamps and we placed one of each item inside each bag.

Crafty eh?