(Sorry, I had to make this picture private, because some idiot is using my photo’s and posts -without permission-on their website. The only way to get my little guys off that website was to make the photo private) I fixed the problem.  No worries. 

Here is my little Jedi and Superman. I’ve been quite busy sewing these costumes up over the last couple of days. My mom did help a bit by making the main blue superman pieces. I did everything else, including the freezer paper stenciled Super S. Can’t even begin to tell you how tedious that was. I have a few burns from the iron to prove it. And the Jedi costume is all handmade by me as well. What is great about these outfits, is that you can remove the accessories and they are comfy cozy pajamas. I could just gobble these two little guys up! Speaking of gobbling things up…..

Before we headed out begging for candy, we had ourselves some eyeballs over blood sauce and green tape worms with monster fingers. Perfect meal to start off with, don’t you think?

And who needs candy when you have these?!?! Click on the picture for the ingredient list.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween Day!

The theme for Illustration Friday this week is trick-or-treat.

Watercolor, pencil and micropen

Happy Halloween!

~Regina

Here is a bony skull vase with paper flowers. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill flower vase that someone was throwing away, decoupaged and painted. Any household jar would work too. I had planned on using an empty Green Goddess dressing bottle, but it made its way into the recycling before I could grab it. (Man, my husband’s good!!) I just used thinned out white glue to stick on the newspaper strips.

Looked kinda cool after each step which makes the possibilites endless. I thought it would be fun to make a set of these to group together with different shapes and sizes. A really fun way to use up household recycled items as well.

If opened, these mystical and very ornery little creatures will wreak havoc to no end. They will fly around, pinch, bite, break things, scream in your ear, torment your pets and throw food all over your home. They are incredibly strong and vicious! Just don’t do it. No matter how sorry you feel for them. There is absolutely no way to capture them again. If you do open, don’t say I didn’t warn you!!!

These are for Amy’s Haunted ATC (artist trading card) Swap. Not exactly the Halloween post I had originally planned, but that sun has a way of quickly disappearing over the mountains. Anyway, I made these little creatures with pen, pencil and watercolors on watercolor paper, cut them out, sandwiched them between a clear plastic sheet and paper then sewed all around with silver metallic thread. I used craft aluminum sheets for the lids and stuck them on with double sided tape. They also have glittery little ribbon wings, which you can’t see very well.

Here is a little helpful tip for machine sewing with metallic thread. I really like the effect of sewing on paper, especially with metallic thread. I usually have a really hard time with the tension and the thread breaking. This time I found something that worked. I practiced for a while on scrap pieces with similar thickness of my ATC. I noticed that the spool was unraveling much quicker than needed, so here is what I did: First, place the spool of thread in a bowl (somewhat heavy), place it on the right side of your sewing machine and thread the machine as usual. This allows the thread to unravel at its own pace, without getting caught up in your machine. To keep it from breaking, fiddle with the needle tension until it sews smoothly through the paper. The bowl thing is really what helped the most. Has everyone already known to do this? I’m so happy I finally figured it out before throwing things and being in a foul mood, which is what usually happens.

Before I go, has anyone ever seen this? It’s bizarre. If you watch it for a while it’ll switch directions on you! (works best if you have high speed internet)

I’ve been wanting to try making pendants using my own handmade images. I’ve had these little wood bits (circles and squares) that I’d been using for making clocks and decided to use them as the base. Here is what I did:

You’ll need paper (I used an old dictionary), wood bits from a craft store, waterproof micropen, pencil, scissors, craft glue, drill, small drill bit and clear glossy varnish.

1. Trace the wood piece on your selected paper.

2. Sketch out an image using a pencil, then trace/fill in with a waterproof micro pen. This will prevent the ink from smearing when the glue is applied.

3. When you are happy with your image, carefully cut out.

4. Decoupage image onto wood surface using thinned-out craft glue or modge podge. (I don’t like modge podge because it stinks). Allow to dry. Add watercolor wash at this time for a touch of color.

5. Very slowly and carefully, drill a hole with your smallest drill bit.

6. Apply a couple of layers of glossy varnish. Allow to dry overnight.

7. Use a jumpring to add to your favorite chain or beaded necklace.

I made these on Thursday and they were smooth. Tonight (Friday) they are bubbled up giving them a bumpy texture. I’m not sure why this happened, but I think I kinda sorta like it.

It’s the topic of conversation at least once a day– Halloween. Are we going to have a Ghoulish dinner again? Are we going trick-or-treating? Of course there is the big costume decision and finally, when are we going to start it all?!?!?We’ve got the costumes decided on, with a bit of coaxing in a different direction, because I simply cannot make a storm trooper outfit! And, I cannot get myself to buy a cheaply made plasticky costume at the store. Maybe an accessory or two is okay, but the costume itself MUST be handmade. Sorry. (for now anyway)

So to start this creepy time of the year off, a welcome spider for the front door. He’s actually a very friendly spider, keeping mosquitoes, and other creepies, at bay. Maybe it will keep unwanted solicitors away too. We’ll have to see.

I have more Halloween tricks and treats up my sleeve for later, because I completely love this time of year!