Halloween Trio

I made these a couple weeks ago, in preparation for a craft night. I sorta copied the idea from some my friend had, for Frankie and the Mummy, but I made up the Pumpkin.
Super easy, and pretty cheap, too. As in, less than $1 for all three. Seriously.

They are made from a 4" piece of 2x4 each, with just a few other bits and pieces: mini spools, painted silver, for Frankie (or you could use some short screws); 1" strips of cheesecloth for the Mummy; plastic spider, 18" twine, and a strip from a brown paper grocery sack for the stem on the Pumpkin.

All the paint is watered down (except the facial features), so it's super-quick to apply and dries really fast. The backs and edges are all done with a very thin black wash, and the fronts get the color.

Frankie's hair was done by painting across the top edge, with fairly thinned black paint, which was then allowed to run down the front until I thought it was far enough down (stand him up, let it run, then flip him over and leave him until it dries). I touched it up with some random brushstrokes in black paint. The face was done free-hand, with a toothpick. A paint pen would work well, too. Glue the spools (or put the screws in) on either side, near the bottom.

Dot the Mummy eyes on the face, near the top and a little to one side, using a toothpick or paint pen. Wrap the Mummy with strips of cheesecloth, and dab on some craft glue that's been watered down, just in a few places, using a paint brush.

For the Pumpkin, cut a 1" strip off the top of a brown paper sack, roll it up, glue the end down, and glue it to the top with tacky glue. When it's dry, wrap the twine from front to back, and back to the front, tie it in a knot, and tweak the ends. Dip each of the spiders legs in glue, and set him on the front. Lay it down until it's dry.

(I would do up a full tutorial, but work is demanding the bulk of my attention these days.)

If you are in the area, and you would like to make some, we are doing these as part of our Terrific Tuesday (most wards would call that Super Saturday, but ours is on Tuesday), on the 18th. Or just let me know, and we'll arrange something.

Egg Critter how-to (sort of)

Okay, so I did manage to make a reasonable copy of our cute little flag-waving fella:

And I remembered to take a few pictures along the way, so I could share it with you.

It won't take long - I made mine in one evening. (see previous post for a list of supplies)

(It wouldn't be right for me to give you a pattern, even if I'd made one, because it wasn't my design to begin with. If I could find the artist, I'd refer you to her. Anyone know who it is?)

First, I sketched the basic outlines with pencil:

(my wooden egg came with primer already on it, but if yours was plain, you might want to give it a coat of white for starters) The line for the bottom of the jacket should be about 5/8" up from the bottom, measured straight up from the table, not along the curve. The bottom of the face should be just about at the half in the front, and curve up to about 1/2" from the top (measure straight again, not along the curve) at the center back. Line for the top of the belt should be half-way down the area between jacket fronts, and the lower line about 1/4" down. Corners of jacket at neckline are about 1/2" apart.

I used one paintbrush for almost all of this. It was a flat brush, natural bristles, about 1/4" wide. Don't try to use the kind that come with kids watercolor sets - get a decent brush, or the hairs will be coming out all over your project.

I had a little difficulty at first, because I couldn't find my flesh-toned paint. I know I have it, but I left it with another project-in-progress a while back, and I wasn't able to locate the project. (I know where it was before I moved the sewing room, but where I put it after that...I have no idea.) So I had to get creative and mix my own. Lots of white, a fair amount of something sort of peach-colored, and a touch of red, and I had something that looked sorta skin-colored. Do yourself a favor, and buy a bottle. I had to mix paint because it was late at night, and the craft stores were all closed up.

Paint the face/head area first, with the skin-color paint, and let that dry.

Then paint the "pants" in red (mine is called Crimson):

sorry for the blur - it was late

You can see that I ignored the pencil line that went straight across under the jacket, and went up to the belt lines. You'll want to paint a little over the bottom (flat) edges. If you don't have something to set it in so it can dry upside-down, just hold it a few minutes and fan it. It won't take long.

After that, I sorta forgot about taking pictures. I kept meaning to stop and go to bed (it was late), but every time I rinsed the brush, I would come back to the table and think, "Maybe I'll just do the next bit, and then go to bed." Next thing I knew, I was all done. But I think you can see where things went from here. I hope.

(I was going to make another and take more pictures, but the week sorta got out of hand, and I figured you might want to try making one yourself before the 4th, so I'm putting this out there anyway.)

After the pants, paint the jacket base, leaving the center bit white for his shirt (I just left that as-is, didn't paint anything). I used a very dark blue called Goodnight Blue. I really used the sketched lines here as my guide, just tried to hold the brush steady while I filled in. Usually, I'd paint along the edges of the area first, and then slopped paint across the rest of it. (No, really, you can see my sloppy brush-strokes everywhere.)

If you work fast enough, you can probably make the lines for the sleeves with a toothpick in the wet paint of the jacket, which should produce the effect of pale blue lines. I wasn't fast enough, so instead, I mixed white with a touch of the blue, and "painted" them on with a toothpick. I then cleaned up the lines by painting more dark blue paint over it where it went wonky.

Paint the black line of the belt, but leave the buckle for later.
Paint the flat heart black, on both sides, and set it aside to dry.

Paint the hands, using flesh-tone. I thought this would be hard, and I hadn't sketched them in. It was easy. I let the width of the brush dictate the thumb area, and then did a sort of elongated half-circle for the rest of the fingers/hand. You don't have to be terribly precise, because next you paint the cuff, and that will cover up any weirdness between the jacket/sleeves and hands. But if you're nervous about messing it up, practice painting a hand shape on some paper first. Let the hands dry before you paint on the cuffs.
Paint on the cuffs with white. Be sure you stay within the sleeve lines so it looks realistic.

After the hands and cuffs were totally dry, I used a toothpick to paint the belt buckle. You could use a finer paint brush, I just didn't want to get one out, and the toothpick was already right there. I used silver for mine, but you can use any metalic color. Or, you could draw it on with a metalic marker, if you have one.

Now for the face. Dot the eyes with black paint using the end of your brush or a toothpick. They should sit roughly in the center of the face, about 1/2" above his shirt. Mine are a little tilted, but I decided I didn't mind.
Use your fine point Micron (or other) black pen to draw the rest of the facial features. If you mess up (I did), paint over it with the skin color and start again. Nobody has to know. Again, if you're nervous, draw some practice faces on paper.

Blush the cheeks using a 1/2" stencil brush and rosey-color paint. You want the brush to be almost dry before you put it to the face. Tap it on a paper towel until it seems like there's not much paint left on it, then blush the cheeks. If you mess up, just paint over it, and try again. Or, you can use real blush, from your make-up kit, and a cotton swab or your finger. I didn't do that on this guy, but I often do use actual blush on craft projects.

For his hair, I snipped up a scrap of raffia into 1 1/2"-2" lengths, and hot glued them onto his head. You could use yarn, or whatever else you've got handy. It doesn't matter much, because you're going to put a hat on him.

Fold up a tiny newspaper hat using a piece of newspaper measuring 2 5/8" x 3 1/2", and the instructions I found for you here. You can tuck in the corners like they do, but I didn't.

Glue the hat to his head, using hot glue, and squish down the raffia hair a bit.

Glue the heart base to the bottom of the egg using tacky glue. The pointy end goes at the back, and the top of the heart shape makes his feet.

Hot glue the flag pick to one of his hands.

Now, the one I was using for a model didn't have a bow, but I think he used to, so I wanted to put one on mine. I used a 3" piece of 1/4" wide ribbon, tied it into a bow, and trimmed the ends at an angle. Hot glue that just under his chin.

Ta Da!

He's all ready to wave his flag while he watches the parade!

All My Chickens, Week 21, Patriotic Egg Critter

A few years back, there was a booth at my local craft fairs that sold little seasonal "people" that were wooden eggs, all painted up cute, with little hearts for their base/feet. I haven't seen any for sale for years, but there were so many I meant to get, including this little flag-waving cutie:

I didn't buy this one, but my friend did, and now, I'm going to try my best to copy it, right down to the little newspaper hat!

I'll warn you right now, I'm not at all a painter. Sure, I took some art classes in college, and I've got plenty of craft paints around the house, but, mostly, I stencil stuff (doesn't take much in the way of skill, really) or I paint things that need to be one solid color.

I've looked at this fella (and others like him) for years, telling myself it couldn't be that hard.
We'll see.
After all, it's only paint, right?

*supplies needed: wooden (or paper mache) hen's egg with a flat bottom, 1 3/4" flat wooden heart, paper flag on a toothpick (like the kind you'd put in a cupcake), various acrylic craft paints (flesh color, plus colors of choice for "clothes"), small flat paintbrush, newspaper for hat, small amount raffia for hair, 005 Micron pen in black (for drawing face), hot glue, tacky glue, and a couple hours*

I made a spider clock!

I found this great tutorial for a spooky clock over on Eighteen25, and I just had to have one.

I got the components and face at Roberts, and asked a friend to do the spiderweb vinyl parts for me on her Silhouette. Then, one of my friends said they were thinking of doing a crackle finish on the face, and I thought that sounded like a good idea, too.

I did the crackle stuff, and messed it up good. The bottle of crackle medium says the crackle effect happens when it dries. NOT. It sort of happens right away, and you'll spoil it if you go over it again. Which I did. So I had to start over, paint it black again, let that dry, put on another coat of crackle, let that dry, and then, with a huge foam brush and lots of paint on my pallet, I hurried to put on the white. Notice that you get bigger crackles where the paint is thicker, and smaller crackles where it's a thin coat. Better this time, though still not perfect; I decided it was good enough.

Got me some glitter spiders out at Zurchers. I figured the different colors were fine, and I liked using big spiders for the main 4 numbers, and smaller ones in between. I think I paid about $3 for the package, and I still have more spiders. (I had to look through a couple, make sure they had enough small spiders, so watch for that, if you get the same kind. If you wanted all the spiders to be black, you'd have to buy a couple packages.)

Stuck the spiders on with glue dots (had to use 2 under the little ones, as their legs make their bodies pretty far from the surface), and put the clock parts together with the face.

For placement, I just set my base on a ruled grid, and lined up top and bottom, side to side, for the main 4, then eyeballed it for the smaller ones. You could use paper, cut to match your face, and fold it in half twice, then in thirds, and use the crease lines for placement. I considered doing that. But then I figured, it'll be close enough. Plus, if it didn't work out, it's only glue dots, and I can move them.

Anyway, that's how I did it. Sort of like the one on eighteen25, but kind of not.