Felt Gingerbread Zombie

     Looking for something cuddly and sweet to give your valentine?  Search no further than this craft ;).

Materials:
*Brown felt (for a more gingerbready aesthetic) or green felt (for a more zombie-like look)
*Gingerbread person template (I traced around a cookie cutter)
*Chalk
*Scissors
*Red and white (or black) fabric paint
*Needle and thread
*Stuffing

Directions:
*Trace two gingerbread person shapes onto your felt with chalk and cut out.
*Decorate one of your gingerbread cut outs with fabric paint to make it look zombie-like.  A few years ago, Brian and I made gingerbread zombie cookies for a Halloween party and I decided that I wanted to make mine resemble that, but you can also go for a more gruesome look.  Set aside your zombie to dry.

     The zombie gingerbread person that served as the inspiration for my zombie gingerbread plushie.

*Using a blanket stitch, sew the together the two zombie halves, leaving an opening large enough for you to add the stuffing.  Insert stuffing until your zombie reaches its desired fullness and then sew closed.

Zombie Valentine's Heart Banner

Materials:
*Cardstock

*Silhouette CAMEO (or heart template and a pen)

*All purpose adhesive

*Thread

Directions:

*If you have a Silhouette CAMEO, import the below template into Silhouette Studio and have it cut out the hearts for the banner.  (For more detailed instructions on using the Silhouette CAMEO with my templates, see this post.)

*If you don't have a Silhouette CAMEO, you can print out a heart template and trace 27 hearts (or 21 if you want to leave out the zombie bit) and hand write letters.

*Space out hearts as desired and then glue them to the thread.  Let dry.

"Bloody" Handprint Zombie Valentine's Card

     Valentine's Day is one month away, which means it's time for me to liven (or deaden, I suppose) up this holiday with some zombies!

Materials:
*Blood colored paint (I added a small amount of black paint to red paint)
*Tap water
*Paintbrush
*White cardstock
*Pencil
*Black marker

Directions:
*Fold paper in half to create a card.
*Cover your workstation in newspaper or other scrap paper and place the card at your workstation.
*Paint your palm with the blood colored paint and then place your hand at about the center of the front of the card to create a "bloody" handprint.
*Use your fingers to smear streaks of paint along the card.
*Add some blood splatters using the paintbrush.  I had to water down my paint a little to get it to splatter.
*Once the front of the card is decorated to your liking, set it aside to dry.
*When the outside of the card has dried, add some bloodstains to the inside and then let dry.  Make sure to leave some white space for your Valentine's message.
*Write your Valentine's message in pencil to make sure you get the desired spacing and then trace over it with black marker.

     The inside of the card says: In a ZOMBIE apocalypse, I'd choose YOU!  Seriously, you'd be way better at all that survival stuff.

Glitter Name Bottles

     I am a sucker for souvenirs with my name on them, so this summer when Coca-Cola released their name bottles, I was excited to find a couple with my name.  Brian suggested adding glitter to them to make them look prettier, so I decided to try that and it worked pretty well.  If you don't have any name bottles, some of the seasonal Coke bottles could look good with glitter, or any bottle you think looks cool but want to spruce up a little.
     The procedure for this craft is similar to that for making glitter ornaments, but the shape of the bottle makes it a little more challenging, so I decided to include a video tutorial.  Brian joins me again as my crafting assistant, so be prepared for more of his shenanigans.

Curious Cat Bookmark

     These curious kitties will hold your place for you.

Materials:
*Cardstock in color or pattern that you would like the cat to be
*Pen
*Scissors
*X-acto knife
*All purpose adhesive and googly eyes (optional)

Directions:
*Print out the cat bookmark template given below.

*Trace the outline of the cat onto your chosen cardstock and cut out.
*Draw on "arms" for your cat, as shown in the template.
*Cut along the "arm" lines using the X-acto knife.
*Draw a face for your cat.  Add googly eyes if you'd like.

Paper Snowflake Ornaments

Materials:
*Paper snowflakes cut from either plain printer paper or from sales flyers.
*Cardstock that matches your snowflake
*Pencil
*Drinking glass
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive
*Ribbon

Directions:
Note: for a video tutorial of how to make a six-pointed paper snowflake, see my Six Pointed Paper Snowflake tutorial.  For a pictorial tutorial, see the beginning of my Sales Flyer Snowflake Bows tutorial.
*Create paper snowflakes by tracing around the rim of the drinking glass onto the paper that you would like to make your snowflake and then fold up and cut out either using your own method or by following one of the above tutorials.
*Trace the rim of the drinking glass onto the cardstock and then cut out the resulting circle.
*Glue the snowflake to the cardstock.
*Cut off some ribbon or thread and form a loop.  Glue the loop to the back of the ornament.

Photo Ornament Holiday Card

     I love the idea of ornament cards.  Ordinary cards are nice, but it can be hard to figure out what to do with them once the holiday season is over (if you're looking for some ideas, see these three posts).  With ornament cards, you can place them on your tree and they're small enough that they take up little storage space.  However, they tend to be expensive if you buy them from a photo printing store.  Luckily for me, I figured out a way to make them inexpensively at home.

Shameless Promotion of Brian's Work Interlude

     Before I get into the heart of today's blog post, I want to take a minute to shamelessly promote my partner in crime, Brian's new coloring book because it is awesome.  It's called Maineiac Coloring (if you're unfamiliar with the term, Maineiac is another nickname for someone from the state of Maine) and it features 30 pages of his hand drawn, whimsical illustrations for you to color.  You can find a preview of it here, and if you like his work, please consider buying a copy.  If you have a colorer on your holiday shopping list, it would make for a fantastic gift and you can feel good knowing your money is going to help a couple of grad students pay for their school/living expenses.
     Now, without further ado, we return to your regularly scheduled crafting.

Photo Ornament Card

Materials:
*Patterned cardstock
*Digital photo and photo editing program
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive
*Acid free pen
*Hole punch
*Ribbon

Directions:
*In a photo editing program (I used Jasc Paint Shop Pro), open a copy (not the original) of the photo you would like to use for your card.
*Using a white circle, frame the photo.
*Draw a white line across the bottom of the encircled part of the photo about 3/4 of the way down.
*Erase everything below the white line.
*Draw a black circle encompassing the white circle.
*Erase everything outside the black circle.  It may help to draw a second white circle and place that around the black circle and then erase so that you don't have to come close to the black circle with your erasing.
*Once it's all finished, you should end up with something like this:

*Print out your photo at the desired size.  Mine was about 2.75" at its widest point.
*Write your holiday message at the bottom of the photo (alternatively, you could add text using your photo editing program).
*Print out the below snowflake at your desired size (mine measured about 3.5" across) and trace onto patterned paper.

*Punch a hole through the top of one of the arms of the snowflake and thread the ribbon through, knotting the two ends of the ribbon together to form a loop.
*Glue your photo onto the center of the snowflake.