Both candy and corny at the same time.

I really like things with happy faces on them. Especially food. Even food I don’t eat.

I don’t eat candy corn, but boy I’m going to love wearing it! And even more than that, I love how simple and quick this project was.

All you need is:

• Shrink plastic (the regular old clear plastic Shrinky Dink kind is the standard, but there may be other brands available); You should be able to find this at your local craft store or online
• Colored pencils or markers (I’d stick to the colored pencils; They seem to give the best results; I’d avoid Sharpie markers because the pigment is too saturated)
• Candy corn template (please see below)
• Scissors
• Hole punch (A standard hole punch will work just fine, just make sure you punch your hole 1/8″ or so from the edge of your original-sized shrink plastic, before shrinking; If you leave less space than that, your hole may break open entirely as the item shrinks); However, I have found that a 1/8″ hole punch gives you a much smaller and more precise hole, and will still accommodate a standard-size jump ring or earwire after shrinking
• Oven/tin foil/cookie sheet
• Earwires and pliers for attaching the earwires to your candy corn
• optional**: Acrylic sealer (It will help to prevent the color rubbing off your finished piece of jewelry)

1. Print out the above candy corn templates; Notice that the two candy corns are mirror images of each other; If you like your earrings to be 100% identical, you can trace one image twice
2. Trace the images lightly onto your shrink plastic. Please note that you will be drawing on the rough side of the shrink plastic, not the smooth side. Start by coloring in the white, orange, and yellow, then go back in to add the pink for the blushing cheeks, and the black for the eyes; If the colors do not seem vibrant enough to you, don’t worry; Colors will intensify during shrinking.
3. Once all of the colors have been filled in to your satisfaction, trace around your image with black for a nice crisp outline; Note: If you want to conserve your shrink plastic, try to trace your images as close to the edges of the plastic as you can. Also, don’t leave wide spaces between the images you trace. The closer they are together (while still allowing you cutting room) the more finished projects you can get out of one sheet of plastic
4. Carefully cut your pieces out, following the outlines/edges you drew for yourself
5. Make sure to punch a hole at least 1/8″ away from the edge of your piece with your hole punch so that you can hang your image safely from an earwire
6. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil and place the cut-out pieces colored or rough side up onto the foil.
7. Slide your cookie sheet into the oven, but do not leave the area; It will only take 1-5 mins for your item to shrink. For safety’s sake – and for fun – you should watch the entire process through the oven window. Please note that your piece will buckle and curl as it is baked, but don’t be too hasty in removing the piece from the oven while it is still in a curved shape. The curves should flatten out again on their own in a few moments
8. Let your pieces cool; If you like, once pieces are fully cool, you can take an acrylic sealer and paint or spray on your design to seal in the color and prevent rub-off
9. Now, using pliers, carefully open an earwire and slip 1 of your candy corns onto it; Repeat for the other earring
10. That’s it!

Hope you’re enjoying Halloween week to the fullest all!

Gone Batty

For this, our second installment of Halloweek, I thought it might be fun to make a fuzzy, batty little friend to hang in your window, or to keep you company on your desk.

You will need:

• Brown, black, or gray yarn, or other color of your choice. There are no rules against a purple bat. Especially if you’re going to Prince’s house for Halloween. (I used worsted weight here, but it really doesn’t matter what thickness you have)
• Scrap cardboard (poster board, cereal box, sturdy junk mail postcards, etc)
• Templates for pom-pom maker, wings, and bow (see below) or you can eyeball this and do it freehand
• 1 felt sheet (in the kids’ crafts section of the craft store) in a coordinating color to make the wings; If you don’t have felt, construction paper/cardstock/foam, or the like, ought to work too
• Scissors
• Googly eyes (or black and white paper or felt), or black beads so that our little blind creature can “see”
• Glue (anything that works with fabric or fiber will work; Tacky glue’s a good all-purpose choice)
• optional**: Red/pink/etc felt sheet (or paper) to make a bow (so that your bat can be a lady)
• optional**: Metal bristle brush/pet slicker brush to make your pom-pom extra fuzzy

1. If you like, print out the above templates. Cut 2 pom-pom templates from your scrap cardboard. You don’t really need a template to make a pom-pom maker, or any of the other bat components, but I wanted to offer the option of making a bat the same shape/size of everything as I did.
2. Please watch this woman’s excellent tutorial on making a pom-pom, and using a metal-bristle brush to make it fuzzy. As you can see from her video, it is not essential that you have a pom-pom maker template
3. NOTE: When you are tying the central yarn around your pom-pom to keep all of the strands together, make sure you’ve got a lot of excess yarn to work with, and don’t cut off the excess once you have tied your knots. This will be your hanging string so that you can display your friend more easily when you are finished
4. If you like, brush the pom pom with a metal bristle brush to make the yarn extra fuzzy; The tutorial video shows a brush from a home improvement store, but a pet store will also have a “pet slicker” brush on the pet grooming aisle, if you don’t already have one in your home.
5. Now, either using a freehand technique (or the above templates) cut out some wings for your bat friend, using either felt or paper
6. Smear a little glue on either side of one of your wings, close to where it will connect to the body. Choose a spot near the top of your pom pom to attach your wing. Push a few strands of yarn out of the way, bury your wing into the yarn threads, and squeeze some yarn threads into the glue that you have placed on the wing. Hold for a few seconds to secure your wing to your bat’s body. Repeat on the other side
7. Now choose where you would like to attach your eyes; I used googly eyes, but you may choose to use black and white felt or paper, whatever you have on hand; Place glue on the back of the eyes, wait until it gets slightly tacky, and then glue the eyes to the bat’s body. It helps if you press some threads of yarn into the glue on the back of the eye, and hold for a few seconds to secure.
8. If you like, now you can make the bow. You can freehand this, or use the template provided above. Glue the bow to your bat in an appropriate and fashionable location, and there you go, all done!

Variations: 1) If you’re feeling extra ambitious, you could probably reduce the size of this project, make 2 matching bats, and have a pair of earrings! You can always add little jingle bells to the bottom of the earrings too; 2) You could make a bat family, perhaps a Mommy bat and a few smaller baby bats. Each member of your family can have a little fuzzy equivalent of themselves to display in a favorite location; 3) Try adding hats or other accessories to your new little friend. Perhaps your bat needs a Trick or Treat bag to carry his or her Halloween goodies? 4) If your bat needs some bling, try giving him or her a necklace made of glitter glue; you could also use glitter glue to draw a nice bat-wing-y pattern on the bat’s wings; 5) There are all sorts of googly eyes on the market; Some glow in the dark, others even come with some false eyelashes painted on. Why not have a glamorous bat diva to celebrate Halloween with? 6) If you’d rather just buy your pom-pom ready-made and embellish it to make it “battified,” no harm in that! The craft stores may have variety packs of pom-poms in the kids’ section

Hope you’ve all been enjoying the week so far, and talk to you again soon!

Halloweek kickoff (or Jack O’ Lan”tee”)

I must confess that I am a little bit behind the 8 ball this year in getting ready for Halloween…

Here it is the week before the big day, and I don’t even really have my decorations out. Also, I really have no idea how I am going to slap a costume together in time for the big Halloween party this weekend!

So, in honor of all of us who life just seems to sneak up on sometimes, I present to you: “Halloweek.” This week, I will attempt to post a collection of Whoomp There it is, all victory, no-waiting, quick crafts for the time-deficient Halloween lover.

Today we will start with my slap-dash Jack-O-Lantern t-shirt. You can use this shirt as a costume on short notice (my boyfriend and I did that last year), or just as an excuse to be crafty and say “hey I’m festive” in a semi non-committal way. Even if you just want to hand out candy in this bad-boy, the lucky people visiting your door will be thrilled to see the smile on your face…and on your tummy.

 

You will need:

• Orange or orangish t-shirt (wash it first to remove sizing if this is a brand-new shirt; it will help the tape stick better)
• black duct tape (or regular duct tape and a black Sharpie if you’re really low on time); I used black Duck Brand duct tape from my local Michael’s
• Scissors
• waxed paper (this makes your life SO much easier, trust me)
• optional*: white washable fabric marker (or one of those left over, thin,  almost useless bars of soap from the shower) to mark where you want your jack o’lantern face on your t-shirt

 

1. Try on your shirt and see about where you want the face to be. Ladies, please pay special attention to this step. I strongly suggest that you don’t put the eyes on the t-shirt without testing first….unless you are going for a very attention-grabbing look. If you are, then throw caution to the wind :-) If you like, use the white fabric marker or the side of the bar of soap to mark the locations of where you would like the eyes and mouth to be. Then remove the t-shirt and lay it flat.
2. Next, unroll lengths of your duct tape. If you are making black duct tape from regular with a Sharpie, now’s the time to color it in. (Note: Please factor in some time for the marker to dry before doing any of the next steps. I cannot guarantee that the marker won’t rub off later anyway, but patience is your best bet here).
3. Place the sticky side of the duct tape down on the waxed paper. Smooth out the tape as best you can to make it flat to the paper; This should prevent the tape from sticking to your scissors while you cut, making it easier to cut the tape precisely the way you want it. TIP**:It may make it a little easier if you let the tape overhang the wax paper slightly at this point. It will make it easier to peel the wax paper off later.
4. Now, freehand cut some triangle shapes from the duct tape with your scissors to make your jack o’lantern’s eyes. It’s best to start off bigger than you think you need and then reduce the size later. Also, if you want your eyes to be the same size/shape, cut one eye out first, and then use this cut out as a template to cut out the other eye. Trim as needed.
5. Next, make the jack o’lantern’s mouth. Please notice above that I overlapped two strips of duct tape to give the mouth more “height”. Place these overlapping strips sticky-side-down on the waxed paper as well. And now for the big tip!!!  TIP**: To make a symmetrical mouth, fold the black tape in half so that the wax paper sides are touching. Freehand cut some teeth from the outside of the strip of tape in towards the center fold. Stop when you have cut almost to the fold line. Then cut a “half tooth” shape directly at the fold line. This should give you symmetrical teeth with one big tooth in the center of the mouth.
6. Now, before you remove the waxed paper backing from the cut tape pieces, place your eyes and mouth on the t-shirt to confirm that they’re the right size,  and to finalize where you want them. Please make sure the t-shirt is stretched out flat and that it’s not too wrinkly when you do this. I wouldn’t use the picture of my t-shirt above as an example of “not too wrinkly” though, for this is not the case….
7. If you like where the facial features have been placed, now comes the tricky part. Try to remove the waxed paper from the tape pieces. It’s easier if you try to free the paper at one of the points or corners. Using the scissors, a pin, or your fingernails also helps.
8. Once you have done this, smooth the eyes and mouth onto the t-shirt where you want them.
9. Voilá! Your Jack o’t-shirt is ready for wear.

Happy Crafting, and Happy Halloween!

 

 

The Shirt off My Back

I kind of love fleur-de-lis.

I think I can trace it back to reading The Once and Future King back in grade school. I just remember reading about Guinevere, pining away for Sir Lancelot and embroidering fleur-de-lis in the lining of the helmet he left behind… <sigh> I loved that story. Still do.

But anyway, my lingering love for this motif led me to want to make the above t-shirt. I used just a few simple tools, not a fancy screen-printing kit or special materials, to make it.

If you’d like to find out  how to make a shirt like this (and/or see the back), please continue reading. Hope you’re all having a nice summer!

Quick and Dirty – and Tasty – Easter project

Easter is now upon us, and I confess it kind of snuck up on me this year. I really wanted to put a crafty foot forward on this lovely spring occasion, but it’s already the big day, and there is still  SO much to do…

So while driving home from the grocery store yesterday (which was MOBBED thankyouverymuch), I had a thought. [cue the Windows 7 commercial version of me here]: A quick and dirty Easter project for us crafty last-minute-Annies! (and Alfreds if you’re reading this guys)

Chocolate egg nests!

I figure that these would make good cake or cupcake toppers, or a nice little item to put on each guest’s plate before Easter dinner. You could even put people’s names on little cards and stick them in the nests for assigned-seating occasions. For the tutorial, please continue after the jump. Happy Easter everyone!