Halloween Time Part 2

Figured that though Halloween is over I still needed to finish my posting about my Halloween decorations. Lets jump right into it. 

I'll start out by saying I am sorry I don't have links for this one. I made this one from a combination of stuff from The Wood Connection & Crafty Wood Cutouts. I started by buying all the small arrows & stickers at Craft Wood Cutouts but then I realized I made the stupid mistake and almost had all of the arrows going the same direction. This would not due. So I went to The Wood Connection & bought the big arrows, the bats & moon & stickers and finished it off that way. I had to add a little spider on top. So here's how I did it:

• Sand down each arrow & pic a paper you like. 
• WORD OF WARNING THAT I LEARNED THE HARD WAY!!! The stickers will not stick to a glitter paper, don't even try. Sucks. But that's just how it is. 
• Glue the paper onto the wood after tracing your lines & cutting out the pattern.
• I got the sticker letters at each of the craft stores I told you about. I feel they were over priced ($2 for the small & $4-5 for the big) but hey, what cha going to do about it? The arrows were $2-5 each. 
• The stickers are cake to place on. just put it where you want it & the kind I had you just peel the top off and there they are in place with nothing left to do. 
• Then I simply hot glued the arrows onto the stick. 

Pretty simple right?? I figured out after the fact this craft was kind of pricey to make (ended up spending about $60 after buying all the wood, paint, stickers, paper, etc.) But I loved it regardless. 

Sorry there is no link for this one either. But I got it at The Wood Connection for about $12. It came with the nose, star & moon, I had to buy the ribbon, wire & jewels for the eyes separately.

How I made this:

• This one did not take long to make. I painted the whole thing black (the cat comes all glued together, I didn't have to piece anything together) 
• Once the cat was painted black and dried I sanded the edges to give it a worn look.
• I painted the moon a mustard yellow & used black wire to wrap around the moon.
• You can't really tell from the picture but I painted the star gold & then overlapped it with a gold glitter paint. In retrospect I wish I would've just used glitter because I wasn't a big fan of the glitter paint.
• Then I had some orange ribbon and made a bow around the neck & tied the moon onto the tail with some ribbon as well
• I used black jewels found in the scrapbooking section at Michael's (or you can buy it at the wood store for a very hefty price) and stuck them on
• The nose got to be a bit tricky. I used black wire for the whiskers and hot glued them on. I don't know if they fell off over time or my pets thought it was a chew toy for them since I had the cat sitting on the ground but they were long gone after a few weeks. 
• I wrapped some black wire around the star & hot glued the star onto the kitty.

I'm not very happy with how these turned out. I am not sure what I did wrong... ok... maybe I do. But I'll explain how to do these and where I think I could've done better

• I used ping pong balls to make these. I bought a box of 30 at Walmart for about $15. 
• They have a logo on them. I tried to paint over the logo with the red. It covered up OK but in hindsight I think I would've rather put the iris over the logo & paint the opposite side red. 
• I tried to use thread at first for the blood shot part of the eye. This was a NIGHTMARE!!!! The person who originally made these used yarn pieces... maybe that would've worked a lot better 
• here is a link to the other blog of how to do them  http://www.halloweenforum.com/tutorials-step-step/78167-easy-cheap-realistic-eyeballs.html
• So take home point... don't try to use red thread! 
• Anyways... I glued the thread (or better to use yarn) on with clear nail polish. Now this is where I think I messed up too. Me being too cheap bout the crappy $0.99 wet n' wild nail polish. I didn't get that kick butt gloss to the eyes that I was hoping for. Maybe to get the gloss you need better nail polish. 
• But I printed out the iris from this website http://www.hauntershangout.com/home/easyeyes.asp  and glued them on with using the nail polish. I liked the crinkles in the eyes from the nail polish though. Made them look more realistic. 
• After doing about 20 of these which would take insane amounts of time I took a red marker & started drawing on the blood shot part. Looked just as good honestly. Not as good as the other bloggers. But good enough. 
• Word of advice again, I used shot glasses as stands to let the red paint dry on the eyes and while the nail polish was gluing. If I didn't use stands the eyes would roll every where and make and even bigger mess. 

These are some ceramics I made years ago. I wish I could find the ceramic store where I got all of these but can't.  So no link. But if you happen to know of a ceramic store in Utah will you please message me & let me know?!!? 

• This one I bought 4 squares from Walmart for $0.98 each & painted them black, green, white & orange. 
• I used a sharpie to draw on them. I simply free handed everything except on the Frankenstein I used the googly eyes instead which made me like him the most. 
• On the spider I used black pipe cleaner for the legs & hot glued them on. 
• I used an orange ribbon and hot glued each piece onto the ribbon. 

That's pretty much most of my Halloween crafts. It's now thanksgiving time and will soon get working on all my Turkey's and other fun thanksgiving stuff. But let's be honest. There's not as much fun Thanksgiving stuff as there is Halloween or Christmas. 

Thanks for reading my blog and I hope I have given you some ideas of crafts to make.