Is it Fall yet?

It is hard to believe it is Fall already! With temps in the hundreds the past few days, it is more like a summer heat wave around here. But it is Fall and Halloween is just around the corner.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, especially for decorating.
Halloween is spooky, silly and scary all at once.

This year to start off my decorating I went to a fun Halloween only craft faire.

Halloween and Vine

This is a juried show and all the crafters/artists displayed amazing Halloween art. Some silly, some fun and some downright spooky.  If I had a bigger pocketbook, I could have bought a lot more. It was so hard to decide what I could afford and not live with out.

This silly little witch below had to come home with me. She is so ugly she is cute!



The artist I bought her from is Kerry Howard Schmidt.
Paper Moon
Lots of fun, felted goodies!


This little kitty came home with me too. I will be hanging it on my Halloween tree. But first I will need to make a fake candle, as my tree is in our sun room, and candles don't do well out there. It can get a bit toasty out there on a hot day!

Len Bentham created this little kitty and "Jack"
Happy Holidays Blog



This artist had some amazing Halloween figures, I wish I could have spent more money!!!


It was really hard to decide what to buy, but I think these too will fit right in my Halloween decor.
As I get it all set up I will share some of my crafts and some of the Halloween decor I already own, some I have had for years.

Thanks for visiting!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! 

May your Halloween be spooky, scary, fun and full of Halloween delights! 

This photo of "Jacks" is from last year. We have pumpkins to carve this year, but with no water yesterday and today, due to pump issues, we did not yet carve our pumpkins. 

Below is the carving crew!

This is the Pumpkin diorama I made last year. My friend Jenny and I saw one on display here and could not take the class so we made our own versions. 

 

I cut a "fake" pumpkin in half and decorated the inside and out with a spooky Halloween display.
I printed a black and white clip art of a tree silhouette and glued it to the back of the pumpkin. I mounted a flying glittery witch in front of the tree. My photo is one I found in an antique store. It appears to be a photo of an adult Halloween party and all are in costume. The back of the photo dates it as 1929. I cut out the group of Halloween revelers and added some color with pens.

In front I added moss and some pumpkins and a skull. I gathered a orange and black crepe paper ruffle and glued it to the opening. I added some sequined trim and a Halloween greeting.

Some of my yearly Halloween decor is shown below. My hutch decked out for the season. The two ceramic Jack-o-lanterns came from Pier One, way back in 1978. (I never throw anything away!). After Halloween I turn them around and they stay out as pumpkins until Thanksgiving.

My plate rack gets a little decoration and the cabinet below hosts my paper mache figures and my urn decked out in white pumpkins, purple flowers and a lonely black bird.

I just made the urn decoration this year. Super simple! A black plastic flower urn from OSH, two white   fake pumpkins from Michael's, a black bird and fall flowers. Just add foam to the urn base, top with straw or filler. Pop off the stem of the bigger pumpkin (but don't toss it, you can save it for another craft project?). Place the big pumpkin on the straw, top with the second smaller pumpkin. Place a black bird on top. (His wires will stick right into the fake foam pumpkin). Add a few fall flowers and you are done! I did not use glue as this will sit in a safe place and leaves me the opportunity to change it out next year?

My paper mache collection is made of two I bought, the cat and small pumpkin headed ghost. The large squash man and ghost topped jack-o-lantern box I made. I wanted to make another paper mache figure this year, but didn't get around to it!

And finally, my Halloween tree! This is the second year of my holiday trees and I added several new ornaments and the witch hat topper this year you can see Here.

Just a couple of detail shots below.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween. I sure miss having trick-or-treaters come by our house! Way out here in the country, no one stops by! But I always have candy, just in case :) 

Halloween Ornaments

This past week while I was visiting my sis in Oregon, I took some time out in the evenings and on Saturday to craft some more decorations for my Halloween tree. 

One of my favorites was this simple music paper rosette with a glittery witch glued to the front. 

The rosette is about 6 in. in diameter. I trimmed my 3.5" strips of music paper with my jumbo scallop scissors (a $ store find, the best buck I ever spent at Dollar Tree) and pleated the paper at every scallop. The silver glitter circle was cut from glitter paper with my new pennant die from Stampin' Up. The glittery witch came from MS crafts at Halloween last year. Why didn't I buy TWO packages?

My ghost is an old Making Memories chipboard shape I have had for years. The "paper" is real birch bark I found on the ground at my sis's house, from birch logs she got when someone cut down their beautiful birch trees! More black sparkly glitter paper is glued on the back for his eyes and mouth.

My little "boo" owl is punched from Stampin" Up punch and he sits on an orange paper rosette made from a new Tim Holtz Sizzix die. It makes two sizes and makes making "rosettes" a snap! The black circle is from my new package of sewing pins. Too cool to toss, so it was saved and re purposed into this fun ornament. I even added a MM Halloween pin. 

 The new tree topper for my Halloween tree this year will be this paper mache hat form I covered with old book paper and stained with a "black wash". 

I made some roses from black crepe paper to trim the hat, along with my glitter polka dot ribbon from Michael"s. To get the ribbon to lie flat to the brim, I pulled the top ribbon wire until it gathered to fit the hat brim. A little black bird and a big bow top it off!

My last ornaments are from a design I saw at Vintageimagecraft and is a free download and tutorial. 

They are too cute.  

I need to find an online source for the "bumpy" chenille as I can only find it locally at JoAnn's and you have to buy a pack with 10 different colors. And since you need 2 stems per color, you need to buy 2 packages. Good thing I plan to make some Santa's at Christmas to use the red and green. 

I hope to put up my "Halloween Tree" tomorrow and add all the new ornaments I made and decorate the rest of my house. Why did the weather have to hit the upper 90's this week? It does not feel like fall! May be my fall decorations will cool us off?