Tag: craft

Spooky Life Given to Christmas Countdown Calendar

Spooky Life Given to Christmas Countdown Calendar

count down

Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays of the year, running a close third behind Christmas and Easter. I love to decorate, get spooky and celebrate with tricks and treats! I know you’ll think I’m silly, but one of the best things about getting my Halloween on is that this spooky day comes at the very end of the month, which means I can start decorating on the first and enjoy the orange and black all month long. It has a definite beginning and an end, which suits my creative self just so.

Since Halloween is a month-long celebration, it stands to reason that one should count down the days until the climatic celebration, and what better way to do so than with a mini calendar. I mean, we do it for Christmas, so why not Halloween. . . and Christmas is exactly where I came up with the inspiration for these cute little countdown blocks.

count down

I purchased this Christmas countdown project at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago and after I got it home I decided I needed to get another for a Halloween version of this project. The regular price for the kit was $5.99 but I purchased mine at 40 percent off, so it was seriously affordable.

count down

I discarded all the Christmas stuff in the kit, just keeping the blocks and number stickers for the Halloween version of this project. The numbers are glittery black, so they are perfect for this project. One thing I discovered about the number sheets is that each sheet belongs to one block. If you adhere all the numbers from one sheet to one block and all the numbers from the other sheet to the other block, you will be able to count down all the days without a hitch (the number six doubles as the number 9).

To begin this project, I spray painted my blocks black and then picked out some cute Halloween paper from my burgeoning stash. I measured my blocks, cut my paper accordingly, inked the edges in black, stuck the self-sticking numbers to the paper squares and then adhered those to all six sides of the small blocks.

For the bottom block I used the same method as the small blocks, but instead of numbers I printed out a “Days Until Halloween” saying and stuck it to the front of the block. I didn’t bother with the bottom and back of the larger block because no one will see it, but if you feel the need to finish it all off go for it. I completed this project with a couple of cute do-dads and now we are happily counting down the days until Halloween. The hardest part about this project was deciding where to display it. Go figure.

 

One Last Patriotic Project — The Jean Banner

One Last Patriotic Project — The Jean Banner

Happy Independence Day, y’all! I hope you get to celebrate our stars and stripes in good old down-home fashion with food, fireworks, friends and family. We are headed out to our friends’ lake house later today, but only after the local parade, carnival and naps. . . oh, and of course we’ll stop for fireworks along the way.

patriotic project

This is definitely one of my favorite holidays of the year and I love decorating our home with loads of red, white and blue. I just had to share one last patriotic project that I finished this weekend, using a pair of old jeans, cheap material, a bit of jute and a few wooden stars.  I knew I would eventually do something with that stash of jeans in the corner of my craft room.

I simply cut pieces of jeans and fabric using my triangle stencil and sewed them together along the top to create a pocket for the strand of jute. In the meantime, I used my large Crop-a-Dile to poke two holes in each star to mimic buttons and painted the stars white. Before I moved on, I popped the sewn banners in the washing machine and dryer to fray the edges just a bit. After a quick ironing, I sewed the star “buttons” onto each of the banners, ran the jute through the tops and strung it up to my mantel.

Enjoy your Fourth and let a veteran or service person know he/she is appreciated!