Halloween Pillow Cover

My new holiday obsessions seem to be wreaths and pillow covers. 

Here's my pillow cover for Halloween.

I love, love, love this fabric.  I was in Portland this week visiting my sis-in-law (hi, Kari!!) and we went to Fabric Depot - being there is like a sewer"s version of a kid in a candy store.  I think it said it's 1.5 acres of fabric...or something like that.  Anyway, we were on our way out the door, and I spotted this fabric and HAD to turn around and go back to get some.  The selvege says it's called "ghastly forest" by Alexander Henry (I think - the words got cut off where my yardage ended)

I like having pillow covers for different holidays.  They fold down so small and are easier to store than separate pillows for each holiday - just make the envelope closure so it's removable.

Tulle Wreath

There are tulle wreaths out all over blogland, and they are all a bit different - from where they position the knot (on the edge, or in the front), to what the wreath is out of (wire or styrofoam) and how long they cut the strips of tulle.

I liked a couple different looks, but none explained what they did.  So I decided to just go for it.  My wreath is a styrofoam wreath form, and I cut my tulle to 16"x4" strips, folded them in half and pulled the loose ends around the wreath and through the loop in the folded end of the tulle.  I centered my knots near the front edge.  I can't remember how many yards of tulle I bought, but I think it was either 3 or 4, and I used all of it - no waste!

I'm still trying to decide if I want to add a pop of color (possibly orange) to it, but I just love the houndstooth ribbon.  I'll probably leave it alone this year and then try a pop of color next year.

**the little spider taped to the door is a glitter spider from Michaels  in case anyone wanted to know.  They look awesome taped up to the wall or fireplace pillars.

Autumn or Thanksgiving Stacker

I made another stacker.  This time, it is an autumn/Thanksgiving themed one.  I love how it turned out.

I cut the blocks at 4", 5.5", and 7"

Fonts:
Harvest:  Impact (can't remember where I found it)
Falling Leaves:  Waterfalls
Pumpkin Pie:  Smiley Monster

2x4 Candy Corn

I saw something like this last year, but I couldn't remember where.  Then I saw this post at Someday Crafts for 2x4 candy corn and it was definitely something I wanted to make right away.  Problem was, I'm still a bit scared to use the miter saw since I almost snapped off my finger earlier this year, so I had to wait until my husband got home to cut them out. 

I ended up making a bunch - some for the ladies I visit teach, my mom, sister, and mother-in-law.  And I had a craft/play date with a friend where we made some projects while the kids played.  I also ended up keeping a couple for myself.

It was easy to paint several during the kiddos nap times as well.  I always think it looks weird to put yellow on the bottom for candy corn- it seems like it should be orange, but I looked up pics of the candy online to double check.  But I think they look cute either way.

Halloween Stacker

I've always liked the stackers tied with ribbon, but I never made one before.  Here's my first attempt at one - and just in time for Halloween

I cut 2x2's into 4", 5", and 6" lengths, painted them and mod podged paper down.

I always like it when people list the fonts they used so I can try and recreate things... so here they are:

Spiders - FrankenDork
Candy Corn - Mail Ray Stuff
Pumpkins - Harrington

My favorite free font site is http://www.dafont.com/.  I like that you can type what your sample text into the text field so that as your searching for fonts, it will display your words in the selected text as they would look on your project.

Head on over to this Shabby Apple Giveaway!

My wonderful Sister-in-law, Kari, is hosting a Shabby Apple Giveaway on her blog!  If you haven't checked out her blog before, head on over.  She has a writing style that keeps you entertained and will tie you up in reading back posts.  And her list of 100 things she wants to do before she turns 100 in the sidebar is fun to read too.

Anyway, she's hosting a giveaway where you could win this green dress from Shabby Apple.

 
Giveaway closes Wednesday, Sept. 28th - so hurry up and enter!

Pumpkin and Ghost bottles

I found this on Pinterest . . . but one problem - I don't drink wine.  So I called around and found some people I know that do or have neighbors that do and they saved me some for this project.

I had to use baby oil to get all the labels off (since I don't have Goo Gone - I know, who doesn't have goo gone?)  And then I spray painted the green bottle orange (after taping off the top for the stem).  And I didn't want a clear ghost, so I used Rustoleum's Frosted Glass spray to foggy it up a bit.

I cut the faces out of vinyl.  Still not sure if I am liking the ghost faces, but it's tricky to get a ghost face to not just look like 3 circles/ovals.  I wanted a smaller ghost, so I cleaned out our soy sauce for that one.  But the neck of the bottle isn't as pretty as the wine bottle was.

Peg People

I won a giveaway on Simple Simon & Co. a few months ago where I got 3 peg princesses...My daughter loves to carry them around, but I hadn't seen the wood pieces around anywhere so they didn't make my to-do-list.  Then, I stumbled upon this post with Star Wars and Harry Potter peg people and was determined to find them to make some of my own. 

JoAnns has the girl shaped peg people that have a dress shaped body, but Michael's had the boy shaped ones that are straight from the neck down.

Here are mine:

They took 3 days of naps to paint . . . and I found them quite addicting.  The pirate seems out of place since the rest are "characters."  I think my favorite is Robin.  You can't tell from the picture, but the back and sides are yellow for his cape.   I started with Harry since I was copying the image from the post above, but then I ventured out and made some of my own.

Toddler Apron and Chef Hat

My daughter is getting a bunch of dress up stuff for Christmas, so I got an early start on some since I'll be making them and don't want to keep it all till the night before and drive myself crazy.

I was looking for a cute apron pattern (but not girly since my son would be using it too) that would work on a toddler.  But I mostly found child ones that seemed sized for a 10 year old or older.  So I just made my own sizing, but used this tutorial. (The tutorial is a PDF, so you have to scroll down the right side and find the button for "classic apron" tutorial since I can't link directly to it)  I picked this one cause it had "D rings" on the neck strap, and I liked the polished look it gave.  And I absolutely love this fabric - I found it at JoAnns.

Anyway, I had to shrink the pieces to work on an 18 month old but still last for a few years.  The length I used was 19" from top to bottom and 17" wide at the bottom.  The top was 7.5 inches wide with a length of 13" from the armpit down.  I did make the straps 20" long instead of 22" as well.  As you can see, it's a little big on my daughter, but it fits wonderfully on my 3 year old son.  So we should get plenty of years of wearing time out of it.

The chef's hat was tricky to make since I didn't want to put bias tape around the edge.  I just doubled the height of the band and folded it in half to get the clean edge to it.  Other than that, I followed the tutorial on that one pretty close.

Vinyl Embellished Toddler Rocking Chairs

My parents get each grandkid a toddler rocking chair around their 1st - 2nd birthday timeframes.  They paint them all cute too!  With my son's, I added vinyl to it before I ever got a cricut... I cut it out with an exacto knife!  Took forever!

But with my daughter's and my nephew's (who are only about a week apart) I cut it out with the Cricut - way easier.

Here's my daughter's chair - front and back... I used the butterfly trail dots to go down the railing.

Here's my nephew's chair - front and back...

And here's both my kids in their rocking chairs.  They don't usually last very long out in the living room.  The chairs are in "toy time-out" a lot - hidden in my room since Emeree likes to stand on it to rock back and forth.  So hopefully soon she will be safer with it and they can be out more often.  Cause they sure do look cute in those chairs!