Halloween Wreath

This is an easy one ;)
I have seen tons of DIY holiday wreaths on Pinterest and decided to try it myself. I went to Walmart and bought a straw wreath for under $5 but later found a great idea on Pinterest to use old pool noodles. You duct tape the ends together so it's in a circular shape and voila! Your own wreath ready to be made.
I just bought Halloween tinsel garland from the dollar store and wrapped it around the wreath side by side. Then I painted a wooden letter "C" that I got at Walmart for cheap black and orange for Halloween! It was super easy to do, took ten minutes tops to make the entire thing. I bought a few of the wooden "C" letters so that I could redo the wreath for Christmas and such and make matching C's for them. (The C is for Conroy, our last name) it is so cute and like I said super easy to make :) I used ribbon and an upside down removable hook to hang it because my only wreath hanger has jingle bells on it.

-Happy Crafting!

Butternut Squash

Living next door to my grandparents is wonderful for many reasons, one of which is her plentiful garden I enjoy eating from all summer. As the end of the season approaches her butternut squash were coming along nicely. Not only am I looking forward to cooking with them, but I had been waiting for Halloween so I could paint them!
Now I am by no means an artist. I work with preschool and kindergarten age children and this is clearly evident in my work. But I'm not as worried about how perfect they turn out so much as how much fun I have doing it!
I had red, green, orange, and black acrylic paint that I bought a while ago for something like 59 cents or something at Walmart and some white washable paint my grandma gave me when she found out what I wanted to do with the squash. I also found a pack of great brushes at Walmart for $2.95 that I love and use for everything crafty.

Obviously I just proceeded to paint different monster faces and Halloween designs on them. On one I tried doing a pattern with Elmer's glue then sprinkling red glitter on it but I only did a little bit. Maybe I'll finish it one night this week. And another I just did red paint on top and put extra water on the brush and let it drip like blood.

A Witch

A Random Thing

Vampire

Halloween Stripes

Ghost

Blood Dripping

Frankenstein

Another Random Thing

This would be super fun with kids, and obviously most people use pumpkins but why pay for one thing when I've got something similar? Just thought I'd share even though no one needs a 'how to' on this!

-Happy Crafting!

Surprise Craft Opportunity

I recently acquired some free insulation from a relative, and as I needed to make room for it in my garage my husband and I were hastily cleaning out the 'garage sale' corner before placing the insulation in there. Most of this stuff doesn't even belong to me. Most of it was from my mother and grandmother and a smaller portion from my sister-in-law as we do a joint garage sale annually. Well this summer I got married so we never got around to it and we've had the same junk for so many years we had said we were going to get rid of most of what we didn't sell this year anyway. So as I was throwing out a lot of the junk I found 3 different glass containers that were perfect for a project I had been rolling around my head lately.

I was going to go to a thrift store and try to find something like them for cheap and little did I know I had several in my own garage! I was ecstatic :) I only needed a few more items to move along with my project.
As I had mentioned before I got married over the summer, but I had planned a winter wedding before the summer one. So my mother had a plethora of pine cones we had collected for decorating, which she threw in my closet and bath tub as a prank while I was out one day along with many other "jokes".. Anyway I had tons of pine cones I had been saving for crafts and had been hoping to use them soon as its fall and this seemed the perfect opportunity.

Other things I gathered were
- fake leaves in fall colors from a fall arrangement I had in a vase already.
- fake squash/gourd things I had in the garage sale pile as well.
- some decorative plastic ghosts, red fall leaves and orange pumpkins from the front $1/2.50 section at target I happened to come across.
- 1 strand of Halloween tinsel garland from a dollar store.

The first one I used was a square glass container. I put a mixture of the fake fall colored leaves (which I just pulled off the branch), pine cones, plastic red fall leaves and orange pumpkins all together in the container. This is how it turned out.

I was very pleased with the result.

The next one I used was a pear shape container. In this one I just put the garland in then sprinkled on as few plastic ghosts. Most seemed to sink to the bottom though.

This one is not my favorite but oh well..

The last one has a base and then was a curvy shape. I filled the bottom with plastic red leaves and orange pumpkins then put the fake squash/gourds and pinecones on top.

I think they are very cute and festive and I've strategically placed them around the house. And of course I like them even more since I made them myself!

-Happy Crafting!