Under a blue moon

Rose Gold Pumpkins

This is a super quick and easy project if you want to go a little extra with your fall decor.  Me?  Extra?  

I went to the craft store with the intention of getting gold leaf to cover a couple of small pumpkins.  But when I got there they only had yellow gold, which looked a bit bright, or silver and it was expensive.  And they didn't have the adhesive you need to use to adhere the gold leaf.  I wasn't about to be put off by a couple of set backs so I looked at the metallic wax pastes they have and found a rose gold one.  

I just threw in that picture because I love this little Halloween vignette in my office.  

The metallic wax paste I used is by Craft Smart.  It cost $8 for the jar but I used a 40% off coupon.  I barely made a dent in it covering two small pumpkins.  I think you could easily do a large pumpkin with one jar.  

This is literally where I do projects.  Just sitting at my desk.  My desk usually isn't this tidy, however (full disclosure...).

I used a soft brush to apply and once it was dry (about 30 minutes) I buffed it with a soft cloth.  That is it.  The brush cleaned up nicely with soap and water. 

What I especially like about the rose gold is that when Halloween is over and all the spooky decorations are put away I can still leave the pumpkins up until it's time for Christmas decor. 

 

Halloween Gallery Wall

I do hope you will all indulge me here.  I love Halloween and our annual Halloween party. Such frivolous fun.

We always have the party at my dad's house and Kate, her daughters Maddi and Lizz and I are the ones on hand to decorate.  My son Evan is usually here when we need him to climb up on a ladder and do something treacherous.   

This year I wanted to do a gallery wall of spooky images.  

Cue craft time music!

So this craft involved dollar store frames, vinegar, water and Krylon Looking Glass spray paint.  I bought mine at Michael's with a 40% off coupon but I'm sure you can find it at your local craft or hardware store.

I went to my local dollar store hoping to find 8x10 black frames but what I did find were garish gold certificate frames in a 8 1/2 x 11 size that i though I could work with so I snapped up nine of them.

I also found nine different images I wanted to use in my frames.  I wanted a Gothic, spooky look so I googled 30's silent screen stars (their over the top makeup up ends up looking kind of spooky...) and found the images I wanted to include in my gallery wall.  I just printed them off on regular old printer paper.  I did try to make then the same tone - not quite black and white.

I sprayed the frames flat black using up various cans of matte black spray paint we had on hand.

The cool, mirrored effect comes from using Kryon Looking Glass paint.  

The trick is to mix to a 50/50 water and vinegar solution and spray it on the glass before spraying the paint.

Pretend you can see the vinegar/water droplets on the invisible sheets of glass.  Also ignore the outlines of the frames from when I sprayed them black.

After spraying with the vinegar/water solution go over the glass with the looking glass spray paint in thin coats.  I blotted each layer with a wad of crumpled paper towels to lift some of the paint, concentrating on the center so there would be less of mirrored effect there.

I would say I did about three coats, alternating the vinegar/water spray and the paint.  I let it dry for about an hour and then assessed.  I didn't think the image was coming though as much as I liked so I sprayed a little more vinegar/water mix and then blotted firmly with paper towels until I got the effect I was going for.

I'll tell you - paint is so forgiving so just experiment until you get the effect you want. 

I wanted mirrored frames with the ghostly presence of others showing though.  I think I managed it with this technique!

 

Halloween Party Invitations

(Links to all products, images and font listed at the bottom)

I'm in charge of sending out the annual Halloween Party Invitations, a task I took upon myself years ago.  Each year I try to do something a little different.  Some years I rely on the creativity of others and order the design from Etsy but this year I created my own.  

Whenever I do a project like this I hop over to the Graphics Fairy and search for images to use.  I found a skull image I liked and resized and cropped it to fit my 5" x 6 1/2" card.  I also found the banner image.  It was a little bit wide so I edited in Photoshop Elements using the transform tool.  I also pulled in the skull image and, using the color picker, made the banner the same color as the skull.   I added the word "Beware" using the font Wretched.  

I inserted the updated images in a Word document and printed them out on Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte.  Cutting out the elements actually didn't take that long. 

I hand address the envelopes using white ink and generally do the return address too but this year I decided to make it easier on myself and printed up address labels using a witch silhouette.  Again I cropped and edited the image to suit my need.  

For the party details on the inside of the card I used a beautiful frame graphic with the addition of a few carefully placed bats.  

My favorite element is the glittery frame around the image.  I used my Sizzix Big Shot with a Spellbinders label die.  The glittery paper I used is Solid Glitter - Titanium by the Paper Studio.  It is the perfect warm silver color, like old German glass glitter.  I got three frames out of each 12" x 12" sheet.  I saved the cut out from each frame and will use them in another project.  Christmas cards, perhaps...

A couple of tips for cutting out glitter paper using a die.  First tape the die to the back side of the paper, cutting side down.  The tape keeps the die from shifting when you run it through the Big Shot.  I folded over one edge of the tape so it was easy to pull off.  I used the same piece of tape for each frame.  Secondly, when you run the paper and die through the Big Shot make two passes to ensure the die cuts through the thicker paper and glitter.

I added eyelets to each corner of the card using a tool called a Crop-a-Dile.  It's pricey but when I bought it, it was 50% off.  It both punches the hole and smooshes the eyelet.  And it does both 1/8" eyelets (like I used) and a larger 3/16" size.

The final step is to attach the cut out images to the front and the invitation details on the inside of the card.  Its perfectly represents my love of glitter and spooky Halloween imagery.  

Here are the links to all the images and products listed above:

• Skull image - The Graphics Fairy
• Banner image - The Graphics Fairy
• Witch silhouette - The Graphics Fairy
• Ornate frame - The Graphics Fairy
• Wretched Font 
• Glitter card-stock in Titanium
• Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte
• Best scissors for cutting out fiddly bits
• Sizzix Big Shot
• Spellbinders label die
• Crop-a-Dile
• Eyelets
• Tombow dots adhesive
• Black cards and envelopes
• Avery round labels
• White pen

 

 

Laundry day - part 2

Long time readers may remember a post I did about etching an old jar so I would have a nicer container for my trusty box of Biz.  That jar has served me well for nine years but it was hard to get the lid on and off.  It just didn't want to line up properly so I reconciled myself to either going back to the box or finding a new container that would work better.

Somewhere along the way I broke the sweet little china mug I used for a scoop.

If you aren't following Sonja from @ourcraftsmancottage on Instagram well I'll just wait a minute while you go fix that.  Her pantry is the the thing of dreams.  I love her green lidded canisters and always assumed they were vintage.  Then she posted how she color matched  her bread box and painted all the lids.  Once I realized they were new they couldn't have been easier to find doing a quick Google search.  They are Anchor Hocking Montana jars and they come in a variety of sizes.  

Rather than etch the word Biz on the jar I painted it on using an oil paint Sharpie pen in white.  I printed off the word Biz using the font Thirsty Script and then taped it to the inside of the jar and traced it.  

Then I painted the lid in my favorite shade of green.  I had a bit of an issue finding the color I usually get (Americana Mint Julep Green) but found Craft Smart in Sage Green which is almost an exact match.  It's the bargain brand Michael's carries and you can tell.  I had to apply three coats (after spray primering the lid) to get rid of the streakiness.  I also coated it with a clear coat of polyurethane.  

For a scoop I polished up a vintage silverplated baby cup and it is the perfect size and way prettier than the green plastic scoop that comes in the box.  There's no risk of breaking it either.

It was an easy project but it is such a nice little touch in my laundry area.  I wish I could figure out some pretty way to store the liquid laundry detergent.  I wonder if I decanted it into one of those beverage jars with a spigot if Rick would go for that?  

A little book review

I paint doll furniture about as well as I do full sized furniture.  Not well at all.  I always miss a spot.  

I follow a very creative woman on YouTube who has a channel and accompanying blog called Thicketworks where she features mixed media art projects.  She has been on a miniature kick lately and just featured a tutorial on making miniature books.  Her blog has downloads so you can easily recreate them yourself.  

The books are very detailed and realistic.  She has a great trick of using embossing powder on the book covers to mimic leather which really adds to the realism.  And the pages really turn and if you had super power eyesight you could actually read them.   I can't tell if I even got them the right side up or not.  

I won't detail how to make them because her tutorial and blog post have all the steps.   I will say it was a relatively quick project.  I printed everything up and cut them to size and got the covers embellished the way I wanted.  Then the next morning I assembled the pages into book blocks, applied the end papers and put it all together.  I would say the entire project took about three or four hours total.

One slight modification I made was rather than printing the PDF files as is I copied the image of the page from her blog and plopped it into a Word document.  That way I could size it down slightly to be closer to 1:12 scale.  

I printed the covers on Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte rather than the recommended card stock because the colors are more vibrant with my inkjet printer.  It's pricey but the results are so much better.  It's the same paper I use when making cards.  

I have made zero progress on the dollhouse restoration but at least now the inhabitant is well read!