Halloween Window Decorating - 2014

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I have so many fond memories surrounding the 31st day of October. When I was a kid we would visit my Grandma Mac (mom's mom) every year dressed up in our costumes, and with me having younger sisters I did it well beyond the appropriate tricker-treating age. (My last year out I was 21 and dressed as Paul Stanley from Kiss.)

Grandma Mac used to decorate her house in grand fashion, give us extra treats for stopping by, and every year she answered the door dressed as a witch. She tried to convince us she was a witch every day of the year, and that she only showed us the hat and broom on Halloween. (I honestly thought if I waited up long enough if I'd see her fly past the moon. Probably until I was at least 12.)

My mom continued Grandma Mac's tradition and decorated my childhood house for every holiday, including usually forgotten ones like Thanksgiving and Easter. Although, in my opinion, her showmanship was best at Christmas and Halloween. So as soon as I bought my own house I couldn't wait to carry on the tradition of decorating for Halloween. Especially seeing Grandma Mac's health doesn't allow for crazy decorating or witch playing, and my Mom has found less time to do it herself as us kids have gotten older.

This project contains items bought at the local Family Dollar. I'm showing you what you can do to the outside front of your house for under $30. *(see note below)

Here are a few of the things I bought. Note they all say a dollar on them :) 

Tip: Car window clings seem to stick better and the colors are more vibrant.

If using windowing clings make sure you have access to the outside of your window. Most new windows fold down so you can clean the outside. The window clings only have one sticky side so in order for the image to show correctly you have to put it on the outside of the window. This also prevents any animals you have from being able to eat the decorations.

If you can't access the outsides of your windows then you can use a more traditional paper cutout like the ones above. These are ones I saved from last year. I like to save what I can each year in order to build up my collection and keep things cost effective.

When building the windows I like to have a theme in mind for each one. That helps me decide what decorations to pick and keeps it from looking cluttered. This is my Grandma Mac window :)

Here is my spider theme that you'll see I later added a skeleton grim reaper to below.

I like to decorate the top windows as well, and since those don't fold out, I used the paper cutouts.

I always have a door cover and this year I really liked the "Do Not Enter" as it matched nicely with my wooden signs and the caution tape I like putting on my garage door.

*Please note that I bought my wooden signs last year. They were around $10 each at my local CVS and I didn't include them in my cost of decorating this year.

AND NOW ONTO THE BIG REVEAL OF THE WHOLE HOUSE....

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Ta-da! 

Hope you enjoyed my Halloween decorating tips. 

Have yourself a Spooky day on October 31st!

Card Crafting

Today I spent the afternoon with Crafty Kid making homemade cards. We used a variety of supplies, some of which are in the picture posted below. The thing I like about this project is that anyone truly into crafting will have most, if not all, of the supplies necessary to do this project in their craft box. It's all the things you acquire and reuse time and time again, especially if you are into scrapbooking.

To follow along with our project I suggest you have the following tools:

• Cards that are blank on the inside
• Color or pattern on the outside is up to your personal preference
• A sharp pair of scissors
• Decorative Scissors are great for fun edging
• A paper slicer can help make clean lines
• Stamps and ink pads
• Decorative hole punches
• Double sided scrapbook tape
• Hot glue gun
• Card stock or scrapbooking paper

I am going to take you through building one of the cards step-by-step and then show you pictures of some of the completed projects. I think once you have all your supplies out and get started you'll see how easy it is to make a variety of cards for all kinds of occasions.

STEP 1 & 2

Pick your card. Then pick an accent color with the card stock that you think will be complimentary.  I chose a mint green card, so I thought a powder grey would pair nicely. If you have a paper slicer use it to cut a strip of paper about an inch and a half wide and for now keep it the length of the scrapbook paper. (With a steady hand you can use a pair of regular scissors. Make sure they are sharp to avoid frayed edges.)

STEP 3

Select a whole punch that you would like to have cut out in the strip of paper. I chose a heart. Use the cut out as many times on the strip as you would like. I decided to space out the hearts as evenly as possible down the row. I also wanted the heart to be centered so after I finished my cut outs I trimmed the top of the strip to make it the same amount of space on the top and the bottom.

STEP 4 & 5

Cut the strip to match the length of the card and use double sided tape to adhere the strip. In this case I decided to put it at the top of the card so I could do a different embellishment on the bottom. This is how you get a layered look for your card and as you can see the cut out hearts reveal the color of the card beneath it.

STEP 6 & 7

Use the cut out pieces of hearts on the bottom of the card. I used a hot glue gun for securing these. Quick and easy. I suggest arranging the hearts on the card to get the look you want and then pick them up one by one and glue them down. This also helps you figure out where the best place is for your stamp, if you are using one. I couldn't resist using this cute stamp since it fit with this design so perfectly.

Step 8
Finished card. Blank inside for you to use for any occasion.

Parting Thoughts

If you try this at home I hope you find it as fun and easy to do as we did! To make the 5 cards below it took 2 hours. (Including set-up and clean-up)

I am so proud to say Crafty Kid loved this project and was very good at it. She made 3 out of the 5 cards featured below with little input from me other than to ask if I liked certain stamps and/or color combinations.

TIP: There are so many ways to decorate these cards. Check your local craft store often for cheap or on sale embellishments. You never know when they will come in handy for your next project :)