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Welcome! …..or…… Beware!
Depending on your mood – display one side or the other of this 2 sided sign. This is painted with acrylic paint on scrap board – so it doesn’t have to be square – what ever kind of board you have will do. Put a couple of holes in the top or some how secure a cord so you can hang it in the window and use it like an “open/close” sign. Complete one side, let dry then paint the other.
STEP 1: Paint your board black, let dry.
STEP 2: Hand write your greeting in chalk and draw a simple pumpkin. Space letters far enough apart because we will be making them fatter when painted.
STEP 3: Choose colors for your greeting and paint them and paint your pumpkin orange. Using a black background gives it a certain style – so don’t worry about getting the painting solidly painted. Some black showing through looks interesting.
STEP 4: Paint inside the pumpkins eyes, nose and mouth yellow. Yellow makes it look like it’s lit from inside. Paint the stem green.
STEP 5: Add detail. I added some vine curls to the Welcome pumpkin and some flame type swirls to the Beware pumpkin. I also added some yellow to the top of the letters on the Welcome sign. Just brushing it on quickly, just for highlights.
STEP 6: Outline the pumpkin and yellow areas in black. I use Createx airbrush black with a thin brush. It flows solidly and smoothly in a way that watered down black acrylics cannot. It doesn’t take much – put a little in a tiny lid or container to work from while you are outlining. After I outlined, I thought the greeting looked plain. So I added some loose outlines to the text. See detail on left. Messy is good – don’t try to be perfect.
Halloween Invitations:
Here is an idea! Photograph your sign and use it for Halloween cards or Halloween Invitations!
Happy Haunting!
Kitty wants a bat
Silhouettes make great Halloween decorations – easy to cut out and tape to windows, walls and doors. I’ve even used those removable glue dots that are readily available at craft stores (in the scrapbooking section). Bats are especially easy to cut out in different sizes – simple and elegant.
Use black construction paper, black poster board or re-use paper grocery bags. You can spray paint big sections of the bag before you cut it up.
Download Images: Click here for a 5 page PDF of the silhouettes above: Witch, skull, bats, pumpkin art. These are on letter size paper and may be cut out as is or used as a template to enlarge or reduce to cut out multiples on black paper. Link opens a new window.
Halloween Party Ideas:
1.These cut outs will also make easy Halloween accessories for your party decorations. You can lay them right on the tables – you can even add them to a plate of cookies. A round plate with the pumpkin in the middle and cookies arranged around it and you have instant, easy table decor!
2. Consider having a Pre-Halloween Party. You and your friends can get together to make Halloween decorations, halloween masks and costumes and props for the school play! Everyone brings their craft supplies – have one big “mess-up-the-house-craft-day”. Get lots done and everyone helps clean up.
Happy Haunting!
Here is a very interesting and creative blog: Skull-a-Day
Make a Halloween Glittered Vase
Every year consumers spend more and more on Halloween. It’s over 5 billion annually now! Obviously its the merchandising that drives that purchasing frenzy. I’ve never seen so many different kinds of product for Halloween than I have this year.
I love Halloween, I love the fall weather, the memories of fall colors as a kid in Colorado, the trick-or-treating. While I love looking at all the goodies out there to buy, I miss the days when the merchandising wasn’t so big. I miss being able to find something unique and different, like a Halloween tree ornament – now they are everywhere.
So this year I decided not to add to that 5 billion dollars and make some of my own Halloween crafts and decorations. And I gave myself a guideline – spend no money! Use what I have in the house. I know you crafters out there have piles of supplies that need to be used! It’s a good assignment to give yourself anytime – “Use what you have.”
I noticed that colored glitter is big this Halloween. Being a facepainter, I always have lots of glitter. I decided to glitter up a plain glass vase I wasn’t using for anything.
Here is how to make the Glittered Halloween Vase: Cover your work area with a big piece of paper or newspaper. With a black marker draw a Halloween scene around the vase. (Old tree, ghosts, moon, stars, grave stones, witch and cauldron, bats etc.) Squirt a little mound of water soluble glue on the paper – (look for glue that dries clear and can be used on glass) and dipping a paint brush in water carefully paint glue on what you want glittered. Then pour glitter all over the glued area.
Tip on glitter: Don’t buy flakes too big they fall off and don’t get glitter too small it doesn’t sparkle. Have a piece of paper under the object being glittered. When you knock off the excess glitter, you can use the paper as a slight funnel to dump the glitter back into your bottle.
Little by little, paint a small area and glitter it up. Knock of excess each time and replace it in the glittler bottle. Don’t worry about being too perfect and detailed – we are going to outline it with paint. Finally, let it dry about 10 minutes and use a soft fluffy brush – over a trash can – to lightly dust off the vase. The glitter adhears to the glass with static – the brush will clean this up nicely. Let it dry another 10 minutes or more.
Above is a close up of it before it’s outlined with paint. And a photo of the Tulip brand dimensional paint I used. Regular acrylics would have been too transparent on the glass. This has a skinny applicator, so you basically use it like a pen to outline everything. It’s made for fabric, but works well for this application. Instructions on the bottle say let it dry for 4 hours. But it is dry to the touch in about 20 minutes. Outline everything and let it dry a few hours before you handle it too much or get it wet.
See the finished product below. I love this glue – I think I will try decorating clear glass votive holders next!
Make a Halloween Sign
I love all the creative Halloween signs that are at the stores right now. Even the dollar stores have spooky Halloween signs. “Beware – Turn Back!” “Booooo” “Happy Halloween!”
I wanted some signs and thought I’d make my own. So “using what I have” I looked around for something to paint on, an old tray, scrap boards, I even considered the top of an old cigar box – too small for what I needed (but that would be good for a tabletop sign).
I had some old thin wood signs from facepainting that I never really used. So I painted them black to cover up the old stuff. While they dried I looked for some interesting fonts for “Happy Halloween.” I printed out a page with some fonts. As well as some clip art of some images to inspire me. I’m using water based paints – acrylics -easy clean up, dries fast.
I used chalk on the dried painted boards – easy to rub off if I mess up. There are a few ways to transfer your text on to the board:
1. Rub chalk on the back of the paper. Trace the letters on your sign to transfer the chalk, or…
2. Use one of those transfer projectors…or
3. Hand draw it.
I don’t have a transfer projector. And I didn’t have a planned out design yet. So I just started drawing. But using the chalk on the back transfer method would work well if you have a collage constructed of your images.
I picked a font. I drew a straight line on the board to keep the text lined up and started drawing – just “blocking it in.” I’ll get more detailed as I paint. I drew some other designs and started painting.
I started outlining the letters in another color and decided that it made it too hard to read, so I outlined it in black. Probably using a black marker would work, or that Tulip Paint with the skinny applicator used on the Halloween Vase. Here are some close ups where you can see how I added extra color and details – and it’s not perfect edges – the imperfections adds to the style. Take your time, have fun, experiment – paint both sides! If you will be using the sign outdoors – a coat or two of satin finish sealant will help it be weatherproof.
I made another sign the same way. Using a light color chalk works great to transfer image like carbon paper. But if you have a light color background – use carbon paper. I wrote a poem to put on this sign and instead of trying to hand write all the letters and hope they fit – I picked a “handwriting” type font and typed the poem on the computer and printed it out. Then put a piece of carbon paper under it and carefully, firmly traced over all the letters.
The first photo below shows the carbon paper result and the center photo shows the letters painted black. Tip: I used water based Createx Airbrush paint with a skinny brush. I used this because it flows evenly. If I used regular black acrylic I would have to water it down too much to make it flow and then it wouldn’t be opaque. Createx can be found at any craft store – look in the airbrush supply section, not the usual paint section.
Here is the finished sign. Even though the text is obviously hand painted and a bit messy, choosing to use a font instead of just regular handwriting gives it a finished, designed look.
You can see some of the carbon paper lines on my painted text – I waited for it to dry completely and used an eraser to remove them.
Also using the Createx paint, I painted black lines all going the same direction on a few spots. This give is that “block print” look.
In the spirit of “using the supplies you have on hand” – here are some Beaded, Glittered Votive Holders. I would have liked to have some orange and black bugle beads for Halloween, but had to use what I had! It was a fun easy project and I can see making more with different size votive holders would make nice gifts. Especially after practicing more and doing a better job!
I used the same glue as the Halloween Vase project – (look for ‘dries clear, adheres to glass’ on the label). Simply put – spread glue on surface, sprinkle glitter, let dry. Add more glue and beads. Let dry. (These flat votive holders were from Ikea.)
Above I have a folded piece of paper that I used to pour lines of glitter out. You have to tap it a little to make it pour. On the right is 2 colors poured – excess glitter is not knocked off yet. Don’t worry about being too perfect with glitter – we’re going to glue beads over it – I use the glitter as a backdrop to the beads. Knock of excess and let dry completely.
I tried a few ways to get the glue on the glitter to lay beads down – ended up squirting a mound of glue on paper and using a toothpick to apply glue to the bugle beads. Then arrange them on the votive. Below is a close up. Experiment, glue all kinds of stuff. I have a bag of Costa Rican coins (1 and 2 colones – less than a penny) I’d like to glue those to something! If you have colored glass, or those colored glass drops – using this glue is perfect to glue on clear glass vases, plates, glasses etc – since the glue dries crystal clear.
