Ghost Luminaries

I bought this small Taste of Home halloween magazine last week.  It's got lots of good stuff in there to be honest... one of the things that I thought would be fun and that the girls also latched onto was this.  I'm one of the "room parents" for both Louise and Olivia's Kindergarten classes and I have been trying to find craft ideas that we can do as an activity for their halloween party.  This seemed perfect...

I have to say it's a lot of fun.  I had a blast making this with Olivia.  Louise didn't seem to enjoy it as much as she was having problems getting the glue and the tissue paper onto the jar.  She got there in the end though but I did sense that she wasn't really keen on the whole thing.  She was just doing it because Olivia and I were doing it.

I have to say I loved Olivia's approach on this.  I bought a luminary from Pottery Barn which is a mummy so she wanted to do hers to look like a mummy.  So to make hers look like a mummy she was pasting the strips of tissue paper horizontally.  I was quite surprised at how clever she can be.

I don't own the copyright to this.  This is entirely Taste of Home so if you end up copying any of the text following please credit them.  The photos are mine so if you copy them - I will get a 6 year old to hunt you down and glue tissue paper to you.

Materials needed:- wide-mouth jars
- face template
- black tissue paper
- white tissue paper
- decoupage glue
- scissors
- tealight candles or electric candles
- sealant (optional)

Method:Cut colored or white tissues paper into 6 to 8 inch strips.
Brush a thin coat of decoupage glue on each jar.
Lay tissue paper strips vertically over the jar, layering only enough to cover the gaps.
Cut face template and trace desired template onto black tissue paper; cut out shapes.
Place face shapes on jar and affix with 2 or 3 thin coats of decoupage glue.  Let dry completely.
If needed spray jars with sealant to protect designs.
Illuminate with a tealight candle or an electric candle.

So I decided to cut the strips a bit smaller - just to make it more interesting... either that or I didn't read the instructions properly (with me it's probably the second part...).  I like the look of the strips being cut smaller to be honest.  The smaller/thinner strips also allowed for Olivia's mummy to look more like a mummy.  I didn't trace the template onto tissue paper - I just cut them straight from the printer.  Although considering I now have an inkjet (thanks to shennigans of broken printer and superglued fingers), I did find that the ink was starting to run slightly with the glue.

Speaking of glue.  Now I am not the worlds craftiest person.  I am reasonably new to all this craft stuff (apart from High School but that was like eons ago).  I have tried stuff in the past but it has tended to backfire on me or it's just become a comedy of errors (Michael's great attempt at sewing as a perfect example).  Now I had no idea of what decoupage glue is - google does though... I think I would be lost without google.  Anyway it's basically just watered down glue - too easy :)

DIY Bunting

Originally I was going to title this DIY Birthday Bunting but you can apply this to any purpose.  I'm still not really sure even why I'm doing this blog post - mostly because facebook wouldn't let me pin one of my photos.

For the girls birthdays I tend to normally go the extra bit or completely mental going by your viewpoint.  This year I thought it would be nice if I made some bunting to hang from the fireplace.  The idea actually came about as I found some halloween paper at a craft store and I'm going to make bunting for them for Halloween (but that one is coming up after their birthday and we are going completely mental for Halloween!).  So I then thought it would be nice if I made some for their birthday... and the idea was born.

I'm normally a bit hesitant about craft projects as something will always go just a little bit wrong or I worry I don't have the skills or abilities - probably the most famous example is my whole attempt at sewing.  So I generally tend to not "do" things.  Anyway I kind of figured what was the worst that would happen - I'd waste a little bit of money on a failure.  At best I'd have something pretty that the girls would like.

The end result I'm not 100% happy with as I should have made the bunting flags a little bit bigger.  But I did start cutting the flags before I found the stickers.  That was also the sticking point (no pun meant) - I had no idea of how I was going to do the letters.  I had a vision (kind of) and the lettering was what I wasn't really sure on.  I was thinking of cutting the letters out but that meant printing the letters, transferring them and then cutting them out.  Which in theory sounds ok except I broke our printer on Monday - I snapped something, tried to fix it and ended up superglueing my finger.  At times I am really reminded of the Midvale School Far Side comic... It really does apply to me in a lot of ways.

I was originally going to attach the flags to some ribbon I found at a craft store but when I was at Target yesterday I found some red and white twine and (HUZZAH!) the stickers.  I thought the twine would be easier to use than the ribbon and it also made it easier in terms of hanging the flags - I just scotch taped the twine onto the back of the flag and then folded the top of the bunting over the twine and taped the back.  And that was it - repeat twenty-odd times and completed.

I'm actually happy with how they turned out - I know the mistakes I made now so I know what to do when I get around to making the Halloween ones I want for the girls next week.