Maine is Where the Heart is Felt Ornament

     Show some love for the greatest state this holiday season.  While my template is for Maine, you could easily design a template of your own and follow the same steps to create an ornament for your home state.

Materials:
*Felt in a color of your choice
*Metallic marker
*Heart button
*All purpose adhesive (optional)
*Needle and thread
*Stuffing
*Metallic thread

Directions:
*Print out the Maine template below or find/create a template for your state.  The dot on my template marks the approximate location of the Bangor area, which is where my family is from and thus where I wanted the heart on my ornament to be.

*Trace two copies of the state template onto the felt using metallic marker and cut out.

*I used a little bit of all purpose adhesive to hold my heart button in place before sewing it on.  The drawback to this approach is that I had to sew through the glue, but it wasn't much of a challenge and ensured that I got the heart in the right location.

*Stitch together the two copies of the state using a blanket stitch, leaving a gap for stuffing.

*Stuff and sew closed.

*Slide some metallic thread through the stitching toward the top and tie the ends together to create a loop to use to hang the ornament from the tree.

Pokeball Glitter Ornament

     Show off your love for Pokemon and add some sparkle to your holiday season with these fun Pokeball glitter ornaments.

Materials:
*Red ultra fine glitter
*White ultra fine glitter
*Glitter-It glue
*Plastic or glass ball ornament
*Black duct tape
*White duct tape
*Scissors

Directions:
*Layer your work space with newspaper.
*Uncap your ornament and pour in some Glitter It.  Swirl the adhesive around until it has coated the entirety of the inside of the ornament.
*Pour excess adhesive back into the bottle.  Let the adhesive drain out for about 15 seconds.
*Pour a small amount of white glitter into the ornament, being careful so as to keep it from hitting the sides.  Slowly swirl the glitter around the bottom of the ornament until it all sticks to the bottom of the ornament.
*Add a little more glitter and swirl it around, slowly working your way up until the bottom half of the ornament is covered in white glitter.
*Add in some red glitter and swirl it around the top of the ornament, until the top half of the ornament is covered in red glitter.  Inevitably, some of the red glitter will mix with the white at the bottom and vice versa, but it should only be a minimal amount.
*Cut off a strip of black duct tape slightly longer than the circumference of your ornament and from that cut a strip about 1/2" in width.  Tape this around the equator of your ornament.
*Cut out a circle of black duct tape and tape that over the strip of duct tape running along the equator.
*Cut out a white circle of duct tape which is smaller than the black one and tape that over the black circle.

Glittery Gourds

Materials:
*Foam gourds
*Paint in colors of your choice
*Paintbrush
*Glitter in colors of your choice
*Acrylic sealer or Mod Podge (optional)

Directions:
*Apply a coat of paint to your gourd in the color of your choice.
*While the paint is still wet, throw on some glitter.  Set aside to dry.
*To keep the paint from flaking off and hold the glitter in place, apply a coat of an acrylic sealer or Mod Podge, if desired.

Geometric Leaf Thanksgiving Scrapbooking Layout

Materials:
*Cardstock or scrapbooking paper for leaf
*Photos
*Scrapbooking paper in the color/pattern of your choice for the background
*Embellishments of your choice
*Scissors
*Acid free pen/marker
*All purpose adhesive
*X-acto knife or Silhouette CAMEO

Directions:
*If using the Silhouette CAMEO, download the below template and import it into your library.  You can use the tips outlined in this post if you're not sure how to cut it out with your machine.

*If doing by hand, print out the template and cut it out using scissors and, when necessary, an X-acto knife.  Trace the template onto the cardstock you've chosen for your leaf and then cut out the leaf shape.
*Once you've cut out your leaf shape (by either method), carefully trace the inside pieces of the leaves onto the backs of the photos.  Add a border around each trace line about 1/8" thick.  This way, when you cut out your photos, the leaf shape will overlap the edges of the photos.
*Crop your photos following the border you drew and glue to the leaf.
*Arrange the leaf on the scrapbooking paper you've chosen and then glue down.
*Add embellishments of your choice.
*If you're looking for an inexpensive way to display your page, you could place it inside a page protector and then prop it against some object, such as a weighted down box, which is what I did.

"Turkey Safe Zone" Thanksgiving Sign

     No turkey on your Thanksgiving menu?  Add this cute sign to your decor!

Materials:
*Red, yellow, orange, and brown cardstock
*Googly eyes
*All purpose adhesive
*Pen (or black cardstock)
*Laminating sheets (optional)

Directions:
*Note: I designed the below templates to work with my Silhouette CAMEO.  If you have a CAMEO of your own, you can cut out all of the pieces using that (for more instructions on using my templates with the CAMEO, see this post).  Otherwise, I'd recommend skipping the lettering part of the template and hand lettering using a black pen, although you could still use an X-acto knife to cut out the letters if you felt inclined to do so.

*Size the above templates to the desired size and cut out all of the pieces, with perhaps the exception of the lettering on the sign (if you do cut out the letters, you'll have to trace another copy of the sign shape onto black cardstock and put that in behind the constructed sign).
*Trace the sign shape onto yellow cardstock, the turkey body onto brown cardstock, four feathers onto red cardstock, three feathers onto orange cardstock, and the little triangular beak shape onto orange cardstock (the circular shapes are for making eyes, but if you're using googly eyes, you won't need them).  Cut out all of the pieces.
*Arrange the feathers out on the yellow sign and glue down.
*Add the turkey body and the beak, gluing those down as well.
*Write out "this house is a turkey safe zone" across the sign.  Try lettering it in pencil and then going over it with a black pen.
*For added durability, laminate the sign.
*Glue on some googly eyes and you're done!

Halloween Photo Booth Props

     The time has come for me to post my final Halloween post of the year.  Right now things feel bittersweet.  Halloween's not over yet, but I feel it rapidly drawing to a close.  The stores have slimmed down their Halloween picks to a couple of clearance aisles plus some candy.  The "Halloween Shop" at Target is illuminated by Christmas lights and all of my favorite props have long since vanished, not only from the shelves, but from the online inventory as well.  I've done a little bit of Halloween crafting this week, playing with pendant ideas for my witch costume, but I know that my time for Halloween crafting this season is limited and I won't be able to do much more than touch up existing props that are starting to age.
     But it's not over, not yet.  Yesterday was like a mini Christmas when my new spiderweb leggings, witchy top, and bat pajamas arrived in the mail, along with Brian's surprise for me: a fog machine.  I can't wait to set it up in my little Halloween cemetery on  Monday.  I'm also pumped to have an actual witch costume, instead of just throwing my hat and cape over regular clothes like I usually do.  This weekend I'll set aside time to watch a horror movie or two and prepare some Halloween treats.  I've started a list of the crafts/decorations I want to add to my Halloween setup next year.  There's still time to squeeze in a little more Halloween fun.
     Planning a Halloween celebration of your own this weekend?  Add some whimsy to your Halloween soiree with these fun photo booth props.  Here are some pics of the props in action from my party.  As you can see, for the photo booth itself I draped some black and purple streamers over the entryway between the living room area and the "foyer" and then added my Halloween plushie garland at the top.

Katie and Jacob with photo booth props.

Brian and me with props.

You may recognize this pic from my Halloween Party 2016 post.  I couldn't resist the chance to share it again.  Plus, it was the only picture I had of someone using the knife prop.

Materials:
*Cardstock in orange, black, white, and crimson
*Glitter cardstock in silver and red
*Thin dowels
*Paint in color(s) of your choice
*Paintbrush
*Duct tape
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive
*X-acto knife

Directions:
*Size the below template to your desired size and print out.

*Cut out the various pieces of the template, using an X-acto knife for the jack o'lantern faces, the inside of the lips, and perhaps the lens area of the bat glasses.
*To make the pumpkin glasses, trace the pumpkin glasses template onto orange cardstock and cut out.
*To make the bat glasses, trace the bat glasses onto black cardstock and cut out.
*To make the vampire lips, trace the filled in lips shape onto black cardstock, the parted lips onto the red glitter paper, and the teeth onto white cardstock.  Cut out each of these pieces.  Glue the teeth behind the red lips, but such that the pointed part pokes down over the bottom lip and then glue the teeth-lips to the black cardstock cutout.
*To make the knife, trace the knife piece with the partial blade onto the glittery silver paper, the handle onto black cardstock, and the blood drip onto crimson cardstock.  Cut out each of these pieces.  Glue the handle over the handle part of the silver cutout and attach the blood drip to the end of the blade part.
*Cut dowels to size if they are not already the appropriate size.  Mine I cut to about a foot in length.
*Paint dowels in the color of your choice.  Set aside to dry.
*Once dry, tape dowels to the back of the props using duct tape.

Halloween Contest Skeleton Trophies

     This year when I was browsing for ideas for new Halloween crafts to make, I stumbled upon these adorable skeleton trophies and decided that I needed to make some for my party.  This meant that I had to come up with reasons to dole out trophies, so I ended up initiating the first ever costume contest at my Halloween party.  I also gave out a trophy to the winner of my jack o'lantern game.  Here are our award winners:

Best Costume:

By a 5:1 vote, Katie won best costume for her look as Sandy from Grease.  The other vote was for Brian's dark sorcerer costume.  In this picture, I'm supposed to be awarding Katie her trophy, but it kind of looks like I'm trying to take it from her it :P.

Best Couples Costume:

By a 5:1 vote, Brian and I won best couples costume (largely by default, as we were the only couples-ish costume) for our witch/dark sorcerer combo.  The other vote was for Katie and Katie.

Jack O'lantern Champ:

Although dad won the jack o'lantern game the first time around (see this post for the picture), he did not want his trophy, so we held a rematch when some more guests arrived.  Ayesha won and became the jack o'lantern champ.

     On the whole, I was pleased with how the trophies came out and people seemed to like them.  I'd like to do this again in future years, but each time come up with different costumes/decorations for the skellies.  Looking to make some trophies of your own?  Here's how I made mine.

Materials:

*Dollar store skeleton garland

*Scissors

*Wooden plaques

*Hot glue

*Gold spray paint

*Paper and printer or paper and pen

*Scraps of fabric, ribbon, pom poms, clay, etc. to create costumes for your skeletons

Directions:

*Remove skeletons from garland and cut the loop off of the top of each skeleton's head.

*Position skeletons as you would like them to appear (some people have cut apart skeletons at the joints and then reassembled them so they could alter the poses and have gotten some neat results, but this seemed like it would make the trophies even more fragile, so I didn't try it).  Glue stationary any parts that move.

*Glue skeleton's feet to its plaque.

*Once the glue has set, spray paint the trophy in accordance with the directions given on the spray paint packaging.  Let dry.

*Make paper sashes for the awards by either printing the text onto paper which you would then cut into strips (I hit 'enter' until I reached about halfway down the page and then wrote out the awards vertically, one letter per sash per line, using 'tab' between sash lines) or cut strips and hand letter.

*When the paint has dried, decorate your skeletons as you'd like.  See what costumes you can come up with using odds and ends.  Here's how I made mine:

*For the jack o'lantern champ, I made a clay pumpkin and glued it to the plaque.

*For the couples costume, I made one skeleton's Ouija board costume by designing an Ouija board in Publisher, printed it onto cardstock, and hung it around its neck using some of the twine from the skeleton garland.

*For the medium of the couples costume, I used some doll hair which I had gotten in a bulk craft pack from the Orono Thrift Shop and some scrap fabric.

*For the individual costume trophy, I pulled out my Valentine's craft stuff and used peace sign hearts to make wings and some wire, felt, and pop poms to make an antenna headband.  I intended for it to be a 'love bug,' but Brian thought it looked like a butterfly, so I went with that.