Tag: halloween

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

So mush fun!

wittychild

When I was gifted a set of four Satsuma Street Halloween ornament kits a few years back, I jumped (ha!) on Hoppy Halloween, and followed it up with Eye Scream and Haunted Hearse. (The latter’s wordplay messes with my brain, and I can’t hear it without thinking, “Ermagerd, hernted [haunted] hearse!”) That left Fun Guy, whose only crime was being a skull. I like my Halloween cutesy, and anything that reminds me of dead bodies – blood and gore, skeletons, zombies – doesn’t do it for me. That old Disney cartoon with the skeletons scared the bejesus out of me as a kid.

And then, out of nowhere*, a Halloween tree appeared in the front room. A Halloween miracle! This was on par with the Great Pumpkin showing up, and I decided that Fun Guy should join his friends on it.

Despite my usual mumblings and grousings about working on black perforated paper, he came along nicely and before long was identifiable as a skull. Then, the mushrooms started filling in, and suddenly he was alive with colour.

If he looked fun (of course) once the stitching was done, the beads and sequins took him right over the edge.

I trimmed him to size, backed him with some black glittery felt, and added a shiny hanging loop.

Isn’t he a great addition?

This is not the first of these ornament kits where I’ve run out of a given colour of floss (white, in this case) and had to raid my stash to finish off the design, but since this was the last of the kits I currently had, I’m not going to get upset about it.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

*She bought it at Michaels. – Ed.

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

We all scream for…

wittychild

…Halloween, of course! I’ve been having fun getting my annual fix of Bobby “Boris” Pickett, sending Halloween-themed happy mail, and fitting in a bit of spooky stitching!

First up, “Eye Scream” (get it? Get it?):

That poor pumpkin looks so upset…but then, I think I’d be, too.

Ermahgerd! It’s a haunted hearse!

Both ornaments are from Satsuma Street kits I got as a gift. I didn’t think to take pictures of the backs, but I used black glitter felt to finish them off so they’ll sparkle from either side as they hang from my (strictly hypothetical) Halloween tree. The hanging loops are glow-in-the-dark Kreinik fine braid, because I love me some glow-in-the-dark.

Happy Halloween, everyone – stay safe! 🙂

Other Crafts

It’s the Great Pumpkin Butt, Charlie Brown

wittychild

Ever since I first started playing around with heat transfer vinyl, the idea of doing multi-coloured/layered designs was always in the back of my mind. Like so many other things that live back there for “some day”, this was dismissed as being too complicated, and what if it didn’t work? That would be a waste of perfectly good vinyl!

I was finally spurred into action when I saw this hoodie on Modcloth. So cute! So cat-iful! The price was a bit hard to swallow, though. And once the price caught in my throat, I found other reasons to not buy it: with the graphic on the back, people might not be able to see and appreciate it to the full extent possible; they only had a handful of sizes left and were still asking nearly-full price; that’s still a crazy amount of money for a hoodie that’s got a strong seasonal vibe.

An Etsy search turned up the exact same image as an SVG file for a fraction of the price. (Note: searching for “pumpkin butt” generates a lot of hits for kits to, ahem, paint your infant’s backside orange and turn the resulting print into a pumpkin. Shudder. “Cat butt pumpkin” was a lot more helpful.) I gleefully informed my Crafting Buddy (who is also my Baking Buddy) that I had found our layered vinyl project. He said he wasn’t sure that he’d want a big pumpkin cat butt on the front of his shirt…”but I could see it as a smaller image on the chest, maybe”. Back to my search, where I found something appropriately pop-culture and masculine for his Halloween finery. Once I got the images resized appropriately, I cut out one colour/layer at a time and hoped against hope this would work.

We started with his shirt because the pieces were a bit smaller and easier to wrangle.

This is the back side i.e. the part that gets placed against the shirt. I learned an invaluable lesson: if you’re going to weed everything ahead of time, make sure you have wax paper or something similar between your pieces, or else the carrier sheet will stick to the sheet immediately below and maybe even start peeling the vinyl off.

We started by dry-fitting (cold-fitting, sine this was before heat pressing?) the pieces to see how they would look.

It took some careful placement, but we got the remaining two layers of the pumpkin lined up. The ghosts should probably be a little bit closer to the pumpkin, but we moved them over to centre the design overall.

It looks pretty good! (The colour variance you’re seeing in the black is just from the heat press, and isn’t a permanent feature.)

Once we had one under our belts, we assembled my shirt. It was slightly more awkward because of the larger pieces of vinyl.

We got things lined up pretty well, though!

Now we can check “layered vinyl” off our crafty bucket list. I don’t know how often I’ll do it, but it’s a nice trick to have up my sleeve.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

Yo ho ho and a bottle of…milk

wittychild

Just a short blast for today, because there’s haunting to do…

I love Halloween. I love cats. So cats dressed up for Halloween feels like a no-brainer, especially if I can work a Satsuma Street design into the mix.

One-Eyed Jack is one of their new Halloween ornament designs for 2021. I was too impatient to order and wait for the kit, so I purchased the PDF pattern from her Etsy shop and printed it out at home so I could start stitching right away.

And you know what they say, kids…if life gives you white perforated paper in your stash when a pattern calls for black, grab a Sharpie and make it so (or “sew”). 😉

I altered the pattern slightly to make his markings look a bit more like my parents’ cat, and I left the plumage off his hat, but definitely added all the sparkly beads and sequins as prescribed.

Because I apparently have too much time on my hands, I created (another!) stop-motion video of the process:

He was a big hit, and is currently affixed to my parents’ refrigerator door via the magic of magnets, keeping watch over any tasty treasures that might get put in there.

Thanks for looking – Happy Halloween! 🙂

Cross-stitch and Embroidery, Other Crafts

Halloween in a box

wittychild

After what felt like a lifetime away from swapping (it was, gentle reader, a little more than a year), I signed up for the Halloween Spooktacular Swap on Lettucecraft at the very last possible moment to turn their five-some into a sextet. My partner described her style in her questionnaire as vintage with a touch of gothic. The original parameters of the swap were for either one medium or two small items, but we agreed that an extra crafted item would be fine, too. With these guidelines, I pulled together a perfectly vintage-y, slightly goth-y Halloween package.

The very first thing I decided on was this vintage-inspired banner.

I cut out the pieces using my Silhouette machine, “aged” the pumpkins a bit, and then glued the works together. To add a bit of dimension, I used adhesive foam squares in between the pumpkins’ layers to make them pop.

A few close-ups:

One of her favourite Halloween themes listed on her questionnaire was “Sleepy Hollow”. Etsy came through for me, and offered up the perfect little pattern designed to fit a 4″ hoop.

But what to do for an extra crafty item? Maybe something like…

…run with her love of old-school movie monsters and alter an Altoids tin into a spooky tea bag tin (individually wrapped, of course, because we all know not to eat open Halloween treats).

It would have been weird to send a package without a note or card or something, right?

The haunted house card (and the banner!) came from SVG Cuts. This was the second time I’ve put one of their box cards together, and it was deceptively simple to make.

I added in some candy (of course) and a few little Halloween-y extras just for fun, and voila – Halloween in a box.

Thanks for looking – stay spooky! 🙂

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

Creepy? Nah. Kooky? Sure!

wittychild

It’s no secret that I love Satsuma Street design, like this one and this one. This year, I bought Mister Cat after ogling it for what feels like ages. On Etsy, you can buy either the PDF pattern or the kit; I bought the kit from 123Stitch since I already had an order going.

What I liked:

  • it’s a Halloween cat, duh
  • her designs are always so colourful and fun
  • the kit came with black perforated paper, so I didn’t have to buy a whole package of it

What I didn’t like:

  • the black perforated paper was a bit of a pain to see (like black aida cloth, so no surprise there)
  • I ran short of three – count ’em, three – colours of the threads included. I am not a novice stitcher who has no idea how to get the most out of her materials, and I didn’t have to unpick and waste any thread, so WTH, people? One, I might understand, but three?

And because I’m a masochistic weirdo, I documented my progress in a series of photographs and turned them into a stop-motion video:

I’m pretty happy with how he came out, despite my issues with the kit. I might have to leave him out year-round just to enjoy him.

Thanks for looking – Happy Halloween! 🙂

cooking

Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere…

wittychild

Pop quiz: What’s this?

Is it:

a) a really slapdash Green Man Halloween costume?

b) a rejected prototype for the Angry Sun from the Super Mario franchise?

c) my very first piece of kindergarten artwork?

Actually, it’s d) the start of something really fun. Take a look!

Last year, the employees from the west side of our floor had a bit of a Halloween party and didn’t invite the east-siders. I discovered it by accident when I went to file something and walked into a table covered in sharable finger food. When I ran into one of the west side denizens later on in the shared kitchenette, she bade me come over and grab something to eat. That’s where I first encountered Rice Krispies treats in the shape of pumpkins, and I’ve had to wait a whole year for them to be seasonally appropriate again.

I used this recipe, and started by cutting two pieces of green Twizzlers (from the rainbow pack) into 1″ pieces, like you see above. I’m glad I cut the full 16, because that’s exactly how many pumpkins I got, not the 12 the recipe indicates. They’re watermelon-flavoured, which is normally not something I’d go for but which is less gross than it sounds, especially in small quantities like this.

I really dug the tie-dye aesthetic the marshmallow got when I added my red and yellow food colour – if I thought it would stay swirled and separate, I’d try making a batch in a different colour, but even if I hadn’t dutifully blended these to a solid orange beforehand, stirring in the cereal would have done the job.

Every recipe I’ve seen for these recommends greasing up your hands with butter or oil before rolling each pumpkin (or donning food-handling gloves, which boast Teflon-esque properties), and oh, that is one step you don’t want to mess around with. I think I managed to form my first two with one coating of oil, but after that stray pieces of cereal began to stick. A few seconds oiling your hands will save a ton of frustration later on.

Rather than wait until I had rolled all of my pumpkins before adding stems, I created a little indent on each one with my thumb as I went along, and found it much easier to get the licorice in while the mixture was still soft.

And there you have it! These were really quick and easy to make, and taste great. So far, they’re proving to be a hit with anyone who’s tried one.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

baking

Cuban Lunch: The [insert scary-sounding gerund here]

wittychild

This is a short one, because Halloween is imminent and I still have to do my nails, gather together the components of the two different costumes I’ll be wearing (yes, I’m insane), and finish planning a birthday party – the latter has nothing to do with Halloween, but still falls close enough to feel like it.

Remember my Cuban Lunch that I shared the recipe for last year? Two very exciting (or not) addenda to that. First, I’ve managed to find the commercially-manufactured resurrected version, which worded thusly sounds a bit Halloween-y in its own right.

It’s a beaut.

Second, I still think I prefer my homemade version, and so I made up a batch to hand out to a few lucky individuals at work as an early Halloween treat.

Because it’s already unseasonably cold around these parts, I was able to stash these in the garage for about 45 minutes to let them really firm up before packaging them for delivery.

Aren’t those bags cute? Each one contains a baggie holding four chocolates, sealed for freshness (if they last that long).

Thanks for looking – have a spook-tacular Halloween! 🙂

Cross-stitch and Embroidery

“Familiar”-ity doesn’t always breed contempt

wittychild

Yes, that’s a bad pun, if it even qualifies as one.  (I’m sure dads the world over are shaking their heads and taking an extra step away from me: “We’d never make a joke that bad.”)

This is just a short one, because I have no real backstory for this, but: just in time for Halloween, I managed to complete “Cat in the Moon” by Handblessings.

Cat in the Moon 1

This stitched up fairly quickly thanks to the negative space for the moon and the half-cross stitch.  I debated leaving the witch charm off because its shiny silver-like finish detracted (in my opinion) from the cat and everything else.  In the end, I painted on a thin coat of black enamel paint: light enough that you can still see the relief on the charm, but dark enough to almost “match”.  It’s just a shade larger than 4″ square, and makes an excellent addition to my minimalist Halloween décor.

Thanks for looking – I hope everyone’s having a happy Halloween! 🙂

Cross-stitch and Embroidery, Other Crafts

Where my witches at?!

wittychild

I’ll skip the whole “Ooh, Halloween!” preamble, because anyone who’s been reading this for a while knows how I feel about it (and if you don’t, check the Halloween tag).  Spoiler alert: I love it!  Obviously, joining the 2018 iteration of the Vintage Halloween Swap on Craftster was a no-brainer.  My partner has received her package, so I figured it was safe to post this now.

My partner’s era of choice was the 1920s-1930s, and “witches” was among her favourite themes.  This might have pushed me just a wee bit outside my comfort zone – my Halloween aesthetic runs toward “cute” and “cats”, and is just a bit more modern – but one of the fun aspects of swaps is trying something you might not ordinarily try.  An Etsy search for “1930s Halloween” yielded, among other things, a high-quality jpeg version of this image:

2018 Swap 4

(This, of course, is a low-quality image courtesy of a Google search.)

She was Art Deco-y and fun, and I decided to interpret her in embroidery.  Using my lightbox, I traced the basic outline in pencil before going over those lines with a transfer pen.  Once the design was transferred to my fabric, I colour-tinted the image before starting the actual embroidery.

2018 Swap 5

Naturally, I didn’t think to take a picture after transferring and before tinting.  This will be a recurring theme.

After setting the crayon, I used a simple backstitch to define most of the image – I had tried stem stitch, because I think it permits more gentle curvature, but it was proving to be too bulky and weird.  I used a bit of satin stitch on the witch’s eyes and mouth, an some French knots to create the polka-dot pattern on her sleeve.

2018 Swap 6

Her hands in the original image reminded me of a Barbie doll’s steel-fork fingers, so I attempted to humanize her a little bit.  Her overall look reminded me of something, too, but I couldn’t figure out what for the longest time, until it hit me: she’s a tad Claudette Colbert-ish,  I think.  Same era, same shot-from-the-left, same well-defined lips…

That’s a regular wood/bamboo embroidery hoop she’s framed in (5″), painted black to really make the colours pop.

When I had gone to Michael’s to pick up the fabric, floss, and hoop for her, I saw a display of unfinished wooden light-up decorations, and lo, they had a witch one.

2018 Swap 1

It did not occur to me to take a “before” picture until after I had started applying yellow paint – I told you that was a recurring issue.

2018 Swap 2

Even after one coat of craft acrylic, she looked pretty good, but this picture definitely showed me the need for a second coat – and that I had to paint the edges black as well.

2018 Swap 3

This picture doesn’t really do it justice – lit up in a dark room, it positively glows.

Consider Halloween crafting season to be officially underway – thanks for looking! 🙂