My Spooktacualr Contribution

I have the honor of guest posting on Eighteen25 Girls blog today, making it my third year during their Spooktacular September.

Like I mentioned in that post, I am finding it harder and harder to original in this social media day and age.  So I hope these circle weave spiders I made fit the bill, trendy, original, and "pin worthy".

Enjoy!

DIY Fall Hanging Art

So, its officially Fall.

And the only reason I know this to be true is Starbucks released PSL 

{for those not in the know thats a Pumpkin Spice Latte}.

And since I base all change of seasons off Starbucks drink rotations, I decided some fall decorations were in order.

WAAAAY back in the blogging day, Eighteen 25 Girls had blogged this really fun technique for painting with corn syrup.

I had always wanted to try it, so I thought this was a perfect time.

I teamed up with my buddy Kori from Paper & Pigtails to help come up with some

cute fall images to use for this project, they can be downloaded here 

{Feel free to use these for other fall projects, just remember they are for personal use only}

So what you will need:

- Corn syrup

- food coloring

- freezer paper

- printed sheet of images

- black crayon

- paint brushes

- small bowls at least 5

- tape

- scissors

- fishing line or something similar

- a branch

First thing will be to lay your printed images under some freezer paper {shiny wax side down} and tape it in place.  Then with a black crayon trace them out.

Once you have traced as many images as you want, take a tbsp of corn syrup and mix in a few drops of food coloring, I made orange, red, yellow, green, and brown. And start painting.  You want it to be a little thick in the application.  And the cool thing with the crayon is if you get some corn syrup on it, the wax propels it and it will disappears off it.

                            

These will take at least 24 hrs to dry.  

Once they are dry cut them out. Then I took a tiny hole punch to each one and strung up a branch above our table {I have a little hook up there all the time for hanging things} And then started hanging the pieces.  The owls I decided to add to the branch as though they are perched...

I love how it turned out!  

Another option would to be make a garland to hang around the windows to still get the stained glass affect they give.

ENJOY!

Happy Birthday Dr Seuss!!

Over the past week I have been knee deep in Seussville.

Buggie's school is having a family reading night tonight for read across America.

Which today happens to be Dr. Seuss's birthday and the kindergarten classes each picked a Dr. Seuss book to decorate with.

So once I heard we got "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"

I met up with my homie Brie, we have been friends since our babes were 3 months old and the kids have been in class together ever since they started school at 3, so working on a project together is just an excuse to hang.

Neither one of us had paper mached since, I do not know 10 maybe, so we had no clue if what we were about to do was going to work. After getting some water balloons, then each of us almost passing out from trying to blow they little suckers up, we got a bike pump and got all 18 blown in no time. Then paper mached half the balloons. Then we waited, a full 24 hrs to see if our little experiment would work...

And sure enough, it did.

Then I took some white spray paint and gave them a good coating...

Once they were dried, I got to painting them. Using the colors from the cover art, I made different stripes and color combos...

Now during this process I have learned it is not Seussie until you bust out the black outlining...

So with a trace of all the strips and a little shadowing, they were coming together.

For the baskets, I took white card stock, free handed a basket the size we needed. Then cut and traced that little guy 17 more times. And then painted them...

And as I stated about it was not Seussified until that black outline came into play...

Once All the baskets were dried, each kiddie got a basket. {PS I only missed spelled one of the kids names, haha.}

I picked up some white paper from Buggie's school and brought it home to get to work on the background. Which I free handed and painted...

It was not the exact cover, but there was no doubt what book it was...

Then Brie and I met up at school and got to hanging. Brie has what I call curiously strong man arms, so she armed the stapler.

I have to say after it was all up, it was exactly how I had envisioned it, Seusserific. And not going to lie, having teachers, staff, and other moms walk by and pay compliments was pretty good feeling!

These kids are a great group and I was proud to help them represent their class.

And they will all go places, up up up and away....

And thanks to this project I now have added Seussie, Seussified, and Seusserific to my vocabulary.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss, hope I did you right!

POST UPDATE:
Number one question on this post, "what did you use to hang the balloons?"
A hot glue gun, just around the edges and then held it up til it dried.

HAPPY MAKING!

My house is speaking to me.

Its saying, buy a douglas fur and stick it riiiighhhht here.

Dig out that bin marked Christmas from the garage.

You know the one at the VERY bottom of that huge stack of CRAZY

heavy plastic bins.

Oh and do not forget to hang the stockings with some stairway cheer.

But thats not all its saying.

Cause I am super creatively awesome {wink, wink}, I came up with a

fun way to use holiday words to decorate.

Here is what you need:

- Felt {both soft and stiff at least one sheet of each for each word}

- Scissors

- Printed Words

- Glue {fabric or felt glue}

- Pen

step 1:

print your words out. I used honey script, I love the retro feel of it. I printed them in word

at 400.

step 2:

cut your words out, snipping the letters you need to cut the center out of.

step 3:

trace the letters upside down on the soft felt.

step 4: cut the letters out, snipping the letters to cut the centers out.

step 5:

place a small bead of glue on the letters you had to cut the centers out of and glue them back together.

step 6:

glue the words onto the stiff felt. and cut around them leaving just a glimpse of the background felt showing.

Now you have the perfect accent to add your decorating.

Here is how our house spells Christmas...

I have some more cut to stick in the tree. And other finishing touches to add, you know once that bin makes a magical appearance.

Tis the season for decorating.

I would love to see what you have going on, link up!

Chaperoning a field trip this morning, so be back later with the winners from yesterday!