Sunday, October 30, 2011

A Halloween Birthday Party



This weekend Candace and I whipped together a few things
for a very, very, very, last moment birthday party for my daughter.
We decided to have a Witch themed party and we
were able to put all of our latest projects to use!

First I found these cute witchy invitations on
Etsy by Say It In Style.
Jenn emailed me the pdf and I printed them up at Walgreens.
Nice!
We had a lot of fun searching for the perfect treats
to fill our witch shoe party favors.

Each of the girls got to fill their own shoe to take home.
The template for these can be found over at Skip To My Lou
Candace found these great Treat Tags over at Martha of course!
Can you find where we used the remnants of the witch socks....?

My favorite prop has been my big black cauldron.
My hubby picked up some dry ice that we added
to some kool aid and presto~you have a  magic bubbling brew!
Our cake stand was put to good use too!
We whipped up some cupcakes and used a fantastic new find~~
frosting in a can ready to apply!
Seriously, can it get any easier?
We found this fun balloon pumpkin game on Pinterest!
Yes, we gave in and bought a balloon pump.
Just the thought of blowing up 35 balloons gives me a headache.:)
Each balloon was filled with treats, stickers and confetti,
so it was a fun suprise to pop!

We found some great creepy candy Halloween necklace kits for the kids
 to put together from Wilton,
and colored some witch masks from Hobby Lobby.
We loved our Beware banner so much we hurried and put together a
fun spooky birthday banner too!
It's official, I'm out of black and white paper scraps!
It was a fun day!
I had a house full of giggling girls and 3 little boy cousins who were outnumbered.
The highlight for me was Candace's 4 year old kept coming and telling us
that the girls were screaming back in the bedroom....
he didn't quite understand that not all screams from little girls are bad.....:)

Not bad for last moment huh?
Tonight we are dipping pretzel rods in white chocolate with sprinkles
for tomorrow's school party.
I never get tired of these, I wonder how many will actually make it to the party!
Happy Halloween!



Friday, October 28, 2011

Witchy Wreath








































 We know it's a little late to be making a Halloween wreath,
 but we came across some witch socks and shoes that inspired us!


We used almost every part of the socks to create the witch's long legs...
We were also inspired by the sock wreaths made by Blue Cricket Design
What a clever way to add whimsy to a wreath and SO easy!
We wanted a large wreath, so we cut and later glued a straw wreath. 
 The wreath is around 20 inches.
We cut two socks, using the long parts of the sock for the wreath.
We wrapped the two socks around the wreath, and glued the ends of the wreath. 
For the legs, we spliced one of the leftover feet. Then we sewed them into tubes and filled them with stuffing.  Next, we attached them to the stuffed boots. 
We just love long witch feet!  We wrapped the bottom with a feather boa and added black tulle to create a skirt. We made the hat out of paper and glued on green Styrofoam beads. We found the broom at Hobby Lobby, along with most everything else.
We had a hard time passing by those stuffed witch shoes in Hobby Lobby...
by the way she's riding her broom "side-saddle"-they didn't come in pairs! :)

Nicole is having a witch themed party tomorrow for her daughter's birthday.
She has put together some cute things, we will be back soon to share!



Monster Mash Bash

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Beware....

We are guest posting over at My Yellow Sandbox!
Come see how we made our
 "BEWARE"
banner!
While you're over there...check out all of Abby's fabulous hairstyle tutorials...WOW!
If only I had her hair...I would be all over it! :)

Thursday, October 20, 2011

All About Witch Shoes



Just in case you missed our fun tutorial  for The Monster Craft Bash
we'd thought we'd post it again.
 We have a soft spot for anything Halloween,
and it's pretty obvious we have a fetish for Witch shoes too!
If you have wanted to try your hand at decoupaging
there are some great tips you want to take a peek at!
This project is pretty simple and unlimited for your imagination!
We knew we loved witch shoes...
but there's something about those socks that are so funny!
You will need some witch shoes cut from 3/4" MDF or pine,
 a 22" section of 2x4" wood,
Mod Podge, scrapbook paper and embellishments.
We grabbed our paper from Hobby Lobby and used K&Company,
which by far has the cutest Halloween paper that we love!
First we drew up some styles we really liked
and sized them to fit together.
We don't have a clue how to do free printables-
but feel free to blow up these pictures on your computer screen
and trace away!:)
These shoes range from 6"-9" tall and about 6" wide.
Ideally you'll need a scroll saw to cut these babies out.
They aren't hard to cut out, I promise!
Second, you'll need to base coat them with a coat of paint.
We always do a 2/1 ratio of paint with water.
The water helps the paint go on smoother with no globs.
Third, trace your shoe shapes right side down with pencil
and cut out each shape.  It's okay to leave a little overhang
which you'll next sand off.
For the sock we cut strips of colored paper and glued them onto white card stock
to create the perfect witch sock.
Another little tip~make sure to pre-cut your "sock" to the edge of the shoe.
That way you won't have a weird bump overhang that you glued over.
Using a very thin coat of Mod Podge, adhere your paper into place.
If you put it on too thick your paper will buckle.
Make sure to rub it all over and especially along the edges to ensure good contact!
Now it's time to sand the edges off!
This is what gives the shoes a painted on look!
You can pick up inexpensive files at your local hardware store for just a couple of bucks
and they are a must for these curly shoes!
You can also use a nail file to get in those tiny spaces.
We cut our lettering out with our Cricut
but you can write it on with a paint pen easily too!
We used Mod Podge to adhere the lettering to the board.
Now here's the fun part!
Tie on any and all embellishments to your heart's desire!
You seriously can't go wrong with these!
We even drilled some holes to lace up which was easy and fun.
Need some buckles?
We cut ours out of scrap cardboard and then glittered them
That stuff is gorgeous!
We even added some to the spider for pop.

Then just wood glue your shoes into place and
you've got a fabulous Witch Shoe centerpiece anyone would envy,
cuz ya know.....It's All About The Shoes!
Make sure to check out all the other great Halloween ideas
for the Monster Craft Bash!
They are to die for!
 hee hee....Sorry, I couldn't resist!!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Witch Shoe Cake Stand

We couldn't resist making one more project with witch shoes.
Of course, we had to add witch shoes to a cake stand...you know, since they go hand in hand....

We added a little spider web to the frosting with black gel.  We don't prefer the taste of the black gel..so next time we will definitely use chocolate!

To add some whimsy, we made the cake a Halloween "rainbow" cake. We used  the Idea Room's rainbow cake recipe.  This is the third time we have made it...so fun!

Our kids were thrilled to have a piece of this colorful cake!

We added repositionable sticky dots to attach the pennant banner, for easy removal if it soils.

Here's what we used to build our cake stand:

One 12 inch wood round,
one 2 inch x 7 inch dowel,
three witch shoes.
screws,
small pieces of 1/4 dowel, 
Gorilla Wood Glue.

We put one long screw through the top into the dowel, first adding Gorilla Wood Glue.

To give the cake stand ultimate support, we drilled holes in both the back of the shoes and the 2 inch dowel.  Then we glued with Gorilla Glue- the shoe to the large dowel with small pieces of 1/4 inch dowels.

I know Gorilla Glue is pretty fantastic, but this will guarantee that the stand can hold a 6 layer cake!
We came to this conclusion....after our mom pointed out that we had a "structural" problem using glue alone!  Our mom...the 3rd Crafty Sister...always willing to help us out!
For the paper, we used a mixture of papers found at Hobby Lobby and some from K& Company's Halloween paper line.

Not only did we use Mod Podge to glue our papers to the wood, but for ultra protection from cake spills, we finished the top of the paper too. We also used spray polyurethane on the painted wood for added protection.

We added glitter to scrapbook buckles, and embellished with Halloween ribbons.

Throw in a few spiders and we have one "witchy" cake stand, perfect for our Halloween parties!