Happy Halloween 2012

Halloween snook up on me this year and all my preparations were done at the very last minute.  I left it so late tonight that I was still carving the pumpkin for our doorstep after the first lot of trick or treaters had left!  

These were my boy's costumes this year:

 Ryan, our eldest, went as Darth Vadar which was easy as we already had the helmet, voice box and light sabre.  He only had to find some black clothes which was easy enough - he raided my wardrobe!

I found the idea for Joshua's last minute costume on Pinterest.  To make it I simply drew the skeleton's face freehand on a black tshirt:

 ...and then cut out the features with scissors.  Initially he wore it with a white t-shirt underneath:

 

(Zombie facial colouring courtesy of photo editing program PicMonkey)

...but then we thought it looked even more dramatic with a dayglo glow-in-the-dark cycling shirt on.

It was difficult to know what additional horror he could wear with this so we settled on just giving him some fake blood facial scars.

It's amazing what you can do when you are under a strict time pressure!  (And thank goodness for the wonderful resource that is Pinterest! :) 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Hope you enjoyed your Halloween,

Nicky


PS (Late additional posting) - I also decorated these 'baby pumpkins' (satsumas)

..using a Sharpie black marker.

 

Vintage inspired Shaped Christmas Cards

Today, as part of my preparations for the school Christmas Fair which I am doing in December, I decided to make some Christmas cards.

I made these:

 I figured that if I didn't sell them at the craft fair, I could use them myself! 

 Not even sure of what type to make when I started, I decided to give the alcohol inks and distress inks on a non-stick mat method a try.  Routing through my christmas craft boxes, I found some unused and admitedly unloved, peel-offs and stuck them down onto some cardboard before dragging it through the ink & sprayed water mix.  

Whilst they were drying, I found some old christmas shaped cards that I had never known what to do with and decided to use them.   They were made from a dull silver and gold card which wasn't that appealing so I covered them up...

 ...with christmas collagey bits from my stash.  After they had dried, I re-cut around the shape of the card.

This was the third one I made:

For this one I added some glitter and gemstones to the embossed snowflake that was already on the card. I then attached my cardboard embellishment on to it, directly in the centre so that it could follow the existing snowflake pattern.  

* * * * *

I've also been doing some other crafts that I haven't yet photographed...

...apart from some more of these blocks that were popular at my last craft fair:

This time I've added christmas messages to my blocks.  They will also make nice decorations for my home, if they don't all sell (I almost hope they don't, I quite like these!...)

Thanks for looking today, I appreciate it.

See you soon,

Nicky

Aaaggggh! Spelling Error!

I hope you'll excuse my mini blog break (again!), I've signed myself up to do another craft fair and am once again busying myself up making things to replenish my stocks.  This one is at my youngest boy's primary school, their annual Christmas fair.  I'm using the lessons learned from the one I did 10 days ago and I am also making new things that are more 'me' than standard craft fair 'fodder'.  More of that at a later date but for today I have some photos to show you.  WARNING: Some of them are not for the faint hearted, they are pretty halloween-y scary!

I was in town today and my favourite shop for reflection photos had another interesting display in their window:

Clocks, lots and lots of clocks!  But no, they aren't what was scary!....

Just around the corner advertising their 'delightful' range of fancy dress they had this:

...which produced some great reflection pictures

loving the spooky face reflected in the sky:

Very gruesome!  No photo trickery, just straight photos taken of the reflections in the shop window.

(In case there is any doubt, the 'face' is a mask!)

As for the spelling error (from my title)?

This:

....spotted in a cheapo shop. Unbelievable! 

Thanks for looking today and for any comments,

Nicky

Post Craft Fair Analysis

So, how did it go?

 Some of the items I made

These snowmen, containing a Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar sold like hot cakes.   The snowmen's hats, you may remember, are made from cutting the tips off a pair of cheap children's gloves.  The glossy effect on the eyes, nose, cheeks and buttons was created using glossy accents. 

None of these calendars sold.  Is it too early to think about next year?...

(I did wonder if the proportions were wrong with these.  I put the scrapbooking paper on to the cardboard  before I bought the calendars.  All the calendars I found in the shops were bigger than they were last year!)

There was a lot of interest in the 'Pint of Socks' (see top picture).  All 5 sold, and if I had had more then they would almost certainly have sold too.  They are made with a pair of black socks and a white flannel, wrapped up in cellophane and tied with a ribbon.

Most of these items sold:

Reindeers with Penguin bars inside

.

..and a few of these sold too.  I also had some orders for different words and different combinations of coloured blocks to be made.  

Here is me at my stall. See if you can spot the 'deliberate' mistake:

Doh!  When I made the banner very late the night before, I missed out the 'U' in 'Flourishes', oops!

Things I did which worked well:

I invited friends along using Facebook.

I brought along some battery operated christmas lights which added sparkle to my items.

My two boys came along and ran the 'Children's Lucky Dip' which brought children to the stall.

Things I learned from the experience:

Give myself more time to make things - not just 9 days!

Carry more stock.

Bring along a flask of tea and snacks, so you don't have to buy it at their cafe which will eat into your profit. 

Consider the type of people that will attend.  In this case it was a church and attracted more elderly people than youngsters.  Make items accordingly, where possible. 

I was hopeful at the start when our town Mayor turned up to officially open the event, but I don't think it was advertised very widely.  Quite a few of the customers that bought my items were other stallholders...

Thanks for popping by today and for any comments,

Nicky

Apologies but I have had to add word verification to my comments, I have been getting 20 spam comments a day recently!