crafts

Making Halloween Bags

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Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. To me, it’s all about the children and just having fun in costume, being anything that you ever wanted to be. It’s the one night where we give “license” to kids and adults alike such that we can play a different role – be scared, and scare others for a laugh. It’s a night where it’s okay to “not be happy” all the time, and where it is encouraged to go up and talk to strangers and say “trick or treat”.

For me, I tend to go a bit “overboard” according to my neighbors. You see, rather than just opening the door and giving out candy, I dress up, plan weeks in advance, buy bulk candy, toys, pencils, erasers, and mini activity books and then buy a bunch of white paper “goodie” bags to give out to the little ghosts and ghouls. I find that the “goodie bag” concept lets me do a few important things:

a) Keep track of how many trick or treaters I’ve had (I know how many bags I made… and how much they cost).
b) Figure out what the cost is and how much I may need for the next year
c) Each bag is hand decorated – but also has my info on them. Parents have mentioned that they like this because it’s memorable and they feel more comfortable if their children want to have some candy while they’re out trick or treating.
d) The children are delighted because it’s a “surprise” in the package. Also, because it’s not just candy – it’s pencils, erasers, and so on, they have something they can take to school or enjoy far beyond the 2 minutes candy might take them to eat.

Most years, I opt for goodies Oriental Trading Company as they have great bulk options for candy, bulk pencils, halloween themed erasers and so on. I try to figure about 0.30- 0.50 per bag, and most years actually end up just under this because the bulk items really are cheaper.

This year, as I’m in Ireland, I bought the candy at the local 1 euro store, and got the goodies off of both eBay and two Irish party stores. The paper goodie bags are bought 50 to a pack for about 2 euros. This year, I bought 2 packages of 100, and then spent 2 evenings after dinner (about 4 hours total) decorating them with my permanent markers.

This could be done by yourself or your children to get them into the spirit. Some ideas that were quick and simple to whip up:

Written words:
Happy Halloween
Boo
Trick or Treat
Spooky
Scary
Frightened Yet
“scaredy cats”
Candy,Candy,Candy
Pirate’s Loot
Magic

Some drawing ideas:
Ghost
Cemetery
Black Cats
Bats
Wolf howling
Moon
Witches Hat
Wizard’s Hat
Witches Calderon
Broom
Pumpkins
Jack o Lanterns
Candy Bag
Voodoo Doll
Frankenstein’s Monster
Mad Scientist
Bride of Frankenstein
Pirate
Skull & Cross Bones
Treasure Chest
Zombies

I ended up with about 2 designs of each, and some were better than others. The key here is that the kids don’t expect them to be perfect but if they can get the “idea” they’re happy. If you’re not drawing inclined, I’m sure there are templates online, and also you can see what I’ve done example wise from the pictures. Once all the bags are completed, have a “fill” party. I put in 2 pieces of candy, a pencil, an eraser and one of either sticker, fake tattoo, halloween game or halloween puzzle book. I then fold down the top of the bags and stand them up in a box near the door. This makes for easy handing out to trick or treaters when the time comes.

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12 weeks ’till Santa Comes

Rudolf packages after snow

Can you believe it!?! It is only 12 weeks until Santa comes and the rush is on. I’ve set a goal for myself that I will try to hand make as many of my gifts as possible. Not only may it be less expensive, and I get to use some of my talents, but it also will be more customizable to each person that I want to give a gift.

So, what am I doing?

Crochet – scarves, bracelets, etc.
Jewelry – stringing some beads into necklaces
Sewing – making tea towel aprons, pillows, etc.
Paper crafts – think stationary, cards, etc.
Pottery / ceramics – painting some fun pieces of pottery to give as gifts

In the last couple of months, I’ve had a class in sewing for a machine and learned to use a sewing machine. Over the weekend, I found a place to let me use the pottery wheel and also to paint some pre-formed ceramics for a reasonable price. They’ll fire it and glaze it, and after a couple of weeks, you get it back – perfect for gift giving and/or keeping for myself.

Luckily my Christmas gift list isn’t too long, and in 12 weeks, theoretically, if I plan everything right, I should have enough time to complete what I want to.

I want to point a few great sites that I’m using for inspiration –

Crochet me – Fabulous site with lots of free and paid crochet patterns. They have a great magazine for crochet called Interweave crochet that I’m subscribed to and have learned some new stitches from.

Ravelry – They’re a knitting and crochet community and they have several project ideas and free patterns that are available for everything from hats and scarves to afghans, sweaters, and more.

Craftsy – what can I say other than I love this site. I’m not a “single item” crafter. I’m more of a Jill-of-all-trades where I find that one piece of something can influence another of the many projects that I have going or would like to try. This site has a little bit of the crochet/knitting, but also has sewing projects, paper crafts, jewelry, and so on.

Crafts Beautiful – this is a magazine that gives away free crafting items (who doesn’t love that) once a month. They have a little bit of everything – and while I don’t always like everything, it really gets my creative juices flowing. The latest magazine that I bought had a bunch of Christmas themed papers – perfect for the holiday cards.

Pinterest – photos galore. Everything from beginning to end from colors to jokes, to patterns that are linked from what others have done.

CreateForLess – repository for lots of craft supplies that are reasonably priced. They also have craft ideas, and they tend to keep me within budget on whatever I want.

Wish me luck, and expect more posts with some of the finished projects coming soon.

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Hen Party Shirt crafts

As some of you know, my friend J. is getting married soon. We recently held a little hen party here for her in Dublin – nothing very big, but dinner and a bit of dancing. Then, we had the proper “big” party in York (more about that later).

In preparation for the batchelorette party weekend, I thought it would be fun to have t-shirts. After pricing several places on line for “standardized” hen party t shirts, I was shocked to see that they were all either black & pink or white & pink – and quite expensive at about 10 – 12 Euros each (about 150 euro). Thus, I decided to make my own for the 15 girls with some plain t-shirts (5 euros each) and some spray fabric paints in the 3 colors that Jacqui loves best – lime green, violet, and silver.

I got the fabric spray paints from a site called as a set of 6 colors for 34.00. I also got a couple of stencils. Add in my time over the course of two evenings – and I had a mini sweatshop going in my living room.

First, I read the instructions, and tried a few tie dye style shirts – with no stencils. This involved scrunching up a few of the shirts in various ways – and spraying colors across them. The results turned out quite cute:

t shirts for Jacqui's hen night


Then, I decided to try the tie dye look with a few sample stencils – like “princess”, “hearts”, and “angel”. This worked ok for some, but I found that if I was impatient removing the stencils, the paint ran. If I waited too long, the stencils stuck. The key was being spot on with removing them at just the right time – when the paint was tacky, but before it was too dry.

t shirts for Jacqui's hen night

t shirts for Jacqui's hen night

As time went on, I got the timing better – and figured out how to get the stencils to work even better – realizing that you had to put on the light colors and gradually add the dark ones so that they worked best.

t shirts for Jacqui's hen night

Finally, I felt comfortable enough that I could actually use some airbrush/spray paint techniques – and actually did a “brick” style layout using some old cardboard to make “stripes” and short lines. Then, waited for it to get to mostly dry. Next, I laid out a stencil for the lettering – and popped on a few flower shapes to spray around. This resulted in a couple interesting looks:

t shirts for Jacqui's hen night

t shirts for Jacqui's hen night

In the end, we didn’t use the shirts while site seeing before the main evening party as I had thought (we didn’t all arrive at the same time, and not all of us site-saw together) but I did give them to the girls as a momento of the weekend. They went over well – as the girls could choose which ones they wanted according to size. The best part was that they were all in similar colors, but they were all slightly different – which meant each person’s personality was reflected a little bit in each shirt.

A few notes – the total ended up being 120 for the shirts had I purchased them pre-made. For these, I spent 110 and my time. I do however have the stencils and spray paints left – only 2 cans having run out after having made a total of 18 shirts. I’m planning on using the fabric spray and stencils on some pillowcases, a couple pairs of jeans, and have some other ideas as well. I think for the cost the project was quite worth it – especially because of the leftover paints.

I actually think this could / would be quite a fun thing for an older child’s birthday party. They can make their own “spray paint” tie dye t shirts quickly and easily out in the back garden – and let them dry for 30 minutes while you sit down to have cake and gifts / play some party games. It’d be a fun addition to the goodie bags and a really neat keepsake if you have kids who love crafts.

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