Halloween Additions - Year 2

We've been in a different house now for two years.  Irene stole every last halloween decoration I had so we're slowly building our stash of holiday decor. The big surprise this year is that Rich got into the spirit with his woodworking  and painting skills. I could get used to this kind of help.

Here are four easy projects.  Project one is a simple framed print. Images made from words are the rage these days, so why not an easy one to add to your photo wall or shelves? Neither of which I have, but hope to by the end of winter.


The second project is a team of wooden ghouls created mostly by Rich. I'm sure you can tell how to make them by just looking at the picture. That's what we did.  We had the most fun making Frank. Rich cut the wood and painted, I added the detail of eyes, mouth and scars.  Jack and the Ghost were not to far behind once Frank was done.

Project three is for outdoors. We made a set of three square pumpkins for the entryway stairs. Rich used a 6 X 6 beam, I guess you'd call it, and cut them in different heights. Once the orange paint was dry, I sanded each to give them a worn look. I toyed with mod podging them, but decided against it for now.  Rich cut a tree limbs,cut them into smaller pieces, drilled holes  on top of each block and glued them in. I added the rafia and leaves.  I think they are pretty cool. I plan on leaving them out through Thanksgiving.

Last but not least is my Jack O 'Light.  After I saw this idea, I looked high and low for the glass blocks. I have one old one that was used back in the day for glass walls. My grandfather used to make lamps out of these. I was really disappointed when neither Lowes or Home Depot had them.   I looked online, but , OUCH, they were expensive.

Days after, I took a trip to Hobby Lobby for other project supplies and discovered these blocks on sale for 1/2 price. They are called Krafty Bloks. Needless to say , I bought 4 of them. The holidays are coming up after all.

What I used for this project is one block, a string of lights, ribbon, vellum paper and my handy dandy cricut.

I first cut Jack's face on my cricut from black vinyl. I cut a piece of gold vellum ( I couldn't find orange anywhere) and adhered it to the inside of the glass block. I stuffed in the string of lights and added ribbon and spiders.  I like the vellum paper on the inside, because it helps to diffuse the light from the string of lights inside.

What do you think?  Of course, ideas for each of these came from Pinterest (where else).

Lessons Learned:

1. Prints for frames look nicest printed on photo paper, not your standard cardstock or copy paper.

2. Hot glue works better than wood glue on the wood projects.

3. I experimented with the vellum paper mod podged, glued, and spray glued to the outside of the glass block. I used 6 sheets of paper in the process. I finally decided to put a glue tab on each corner and put the paper on the inside of the block. Looks the best. No bubbles or dried glue streaks to look at.

Have you made any Halloween decorations? I'd love to hear what you have made or your comments about these.

Thanks for visiting.

Happy Halloween Everyone!