Creepy Crafts for Hair-Raising Halloween Party Perfection

  I've got 3 incredibly freakin' difficult Halloween crafts that are sure to disgust your candy-munchin' ghosts, goblins, pirates, princesses, vampires & werewolves!  By disgust, I mean delight and by incredibly freakin' difficult, I mean HELLA EASY!  Boo-ya! (Pun intended)

  So, let's get this show on the road, ladies.  Halloween ain't gonna wait around forever!

Peter Piper Picked A Pumpkin Cup

Starting with the easiest of the easy, I'll show ya what I did to make the Pumpkin Cups!

1. Buy some Mandarin Orange fruit cups and grab yourself a Sharpie.

 

2. Use your Sharpie and draw a Jack O' Lantern face right on those bad boys.

3. DONE!

Moving on...

Granny's Ghastly Goblin Garland

Not particularly difficult, but slightly more time consuming.

1. Gather up the following items:

- 4 different styles of fabric, 1 yard each. (This will make A LOT of garland.  I made one 18' strand and three 10' strands with supplies to spare using this amount.)

- Spool of hemp

- Scissors

- Pencil (for marking the fabric to cut)

- Yardstick

2. Cut fabric into 1.5" x 6" strips.

3. Cut hemp to desired length of garland.

4. Tie the fabric strips around the hemp.  I left a little space between each one.  The closer you tie them to each other, the fuller your garland will be.

5. Keep going till you run out of string, Einstein.

6. Use the garland to tie up your children and use them as scary Halloween decor in your front yard.

And last but not least...

Paranormal Party Potion

1. Here's what you'll need:

- Juice Boxes (the dimensions of mine were 4.75" x 2" x 1.5")

- Spooky (Or pretty, whatever) Gift Wrap

- Various styles & colors of ribbon.

- Scotch Tape

- Bottle of school glue

- Assorted Halloween die cut card stock. (I found these at Michael's, but if you have a Cricut, you're ahead of the game!)

- Yard stick

- and Scissors (Not pictured.  Dummy me.)

2. Easily the most tedious step of them all: Remove the straws from the backs of the juice boxes WITHOUT RIPPING OPEN THE PROTECTIVE PLASTIC SLEEVE!  I may or may not have cursed under my breath while completing this step.

3.  Cut the gift wrap into 6" x 7.25" rectangles.  (These dimensions were perfect for the size of my juice boxes.  If your boxes are a different size, adjust accordingly)

4.  Cut ribbon into 7" strips. (Ditto from above)

5.  Wrap box in gift wrap, but don't cover the top end.  Fasten with Scotch Tape.

6. Wrap ribbon around the box and fasten in back using a combination of school glue & scotch tape.

7. Glue the Halloween die cut shapes onto the front of the box and allow to set.

8.  Attach the straw to the back of the box using a small piece of scotch tape.

Good job there, kiddo!  Now, no one will go thirsty.

  So, there you have it.  Hopefully you're sufficiently inspired enough to throw your kids one heck of a Halloween hoedown... or at least have some cool ideas to contribute to someone else's spooktacular shindig.  I'll post some additional shots below so feel free to check them out.

Until next time, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

                                              _
                              /\              )\
                _           __)_)__        .'`--`'.
                )\_      .-'._'-'_.'-.    /  ^  ^  \
             .'`---`'. .'.' /o\'/o\ '.'.  \ \/\/\/ /
            /  <> <>  \ : ._:  0  :_. : \  '------'       _J_
            |    A    |:   \\/\_/\//   : |     _/)_    .'`---`'.
            \  <\_/>  / :  :\/\_/\/:  : /   .'`----`'./.'b   d  \
           _?_._`"`_.'`'-:__:__:__:__:-'   /.'<\   /> \:   0    |
        .'`---`'.``  _/(              /\   |:,___A___,|' V===V  /
       /.'a . a  \.'`---`'.        __(_(__ \' \_____/ /'._____.'
       |:  ___   /.'/\ /\  \    .-'._'-'_.'-:.______.' _?_
       \'  \_/   |:   ^    |  .'.' (o\'/o) '.'.     .'`"""`'.
        '._____.'\' 'vvv'  / / :_/_:  A  :_\_: \   /   ^.^   \
                  '.__.__.' | :   \'=...='/   : |  \  `===`  /
                             \ :  :'.___.':  : /    `-------`
                              '-:__:__:__:__:-' 

No Sew Tutu-torial

Real quick.  I want you to take a look at the price of tutus on Etsy.  Go ahead.  I'll wait...

Pretty ridiculous right?  I don't want to tell you how many of these outrageously priced fluff balls I've purchased for my not-even-2-year-old daughter.  She literally has a closet full.  No more, I say!!

Have I gone insane?  Do I no longer desire to have my most precious female anklebiter draped in lacy, beautiful tulle?  Of course I do!  I (& my wallet) just refuse to pay out the wazoo for them! I knew I could do this myself... and when I finally did, I was pleasantly surprised how easy it actually was!

Here's what I used:

• A Crochet-Style Elastic Headband (make sure it's stretchy enough to fit over the waist of the recipient rugrat)
• Approximately 6 Yards of Tulle (total)
• Ruler or Yardstick
• and Scissors

...that's it.  No, I'm not kidding.

The first thing you're going to want to do is cut your tulle into roughly about 6" x 28" strips.  Measuring REALLY isn't my thing.  You could just throw out the ruler and eyeball it if you like living on the edge.  Or be creative and cut them all different sizes.  It's really up to you. I used my ruler as a guide, but didn't sweat it if my sizes weren't exact.  It's how I roll.

See those openings there in that headband?  That's where we're going to be working.  The headband I used had metallic strings in the openings... yeah, I just pretended like they didn't exist and poked right through those suckers.

Take one of your tulle strips and fold it in half.  Then, thread the fold through one of the openings in the bottom row in your headband.  Pull it through about an inch or so.

Next, reach through the loop and slide the rest of the tulle through it.  Pull tight.

Got it so far?  Great!  Now, just keep going around the circumference (whoa, big math word) of the headband.

Has the arthritis set in yet?  If so, you could just stop at this point with a dinky, boring tutu.  OR, you could be awesome.  Your choice.

If you chose to be awesome, take this moment to pat yourself on the back.  You're doing great!  Ok, that's enough.

Now, move up a couple rows in your headband. 

                                             Right... about.... there.   

Take your remaining strips of tulle and cut them in half right through the width.  That's right, Sherlock.  They're 14 inches now.  Genius.

Take one of your (now shorter) strips of tulle and thread it halfway through and then back through two consecutive openings in the headband (left picture).  Then tie a simple overhand knot.

Again, just keep going.  This will create a fun halo effect around the top of the skirt.  It will also hide the remainder of the headband.

The inside of the band should look like this when finished:

Last, but not least, tell NO ONE that you made it yourself.  I know you're probably real proud of your effort & result, however, don't say I didn't warn you.  Next thing you know, Mrs. Fisher is going to want all the girls in her first grade class room to have one and you are going to be one tulled-out mama.  Better yet, tell them you found this really fantastic blog that offers some nifty DIY ideas!  *wink*

Feedback on this tutorial would be great!  I've only done one other, which you can read here, where you'll learn to keep the kiddos from pestering you busy with Bubble Snakes.

In the famous words of the great Biz Markie: "See ya'll next time.  Bye-bye!"

~Angela