Fangtastic Treat Bags

I still can’t believe College Boy is a Sophomore but he is. And if I’ve learned one thing as a parent of a college student, even though they’re all “grown up” they still love to get treats from home.

At my son’s college, freshmen are assigned to small groups of 12-14 called Sponsor Groups based on their housing forms which puts them as closely together with people who share similar interests etc. He loved this so much as a freshman, that he applied and was accepted to be a Sponsor this year.He and his “Co-Spo”  have a group of 14 freshmen they help get acclimated, used to college life, are a resource for questions etc.

Last year I decided that I could still have fun with the kinds of things I used to do before he left for college and sent goodies to his “Spiblings” as they’re called. So why should this year be any different?

It’s also mid-term time for them so I included some things to lighten the intense mood and remind them to be silly. Jumping frogs and glow in the dark Vampire fangs.

I made the graphic for these labels in PicMonkey, imported to my graphics program,  and printed them on card stock.

Got some double chocolate and salted caramel hot cocoa packets.

And of course candy…all chocolate of course. I used black and white polka dot paper bags by Whisker Graphics, placed one of each thing in the bag and sealed with red and white dotted Washi tape.

Finished off each bag with one of the tags and off to school! Here’s the card I made to go along with the goody bags,  also using my label :

I used some red crepe paper to make a ribbon for the card, mounted the label on red glittered cardstock and went over the letters with red Stickles glitter glue.

Vampire Coffin Boxes

I know a couple of people who love all things Vampire. Even though I’m not that into them, Vampires do give me an excuse to play with my signature colors: black and white. And what’s a Vampire without a little red?

Started with one of these from Michaels. Painted the sides with Martha Stewart red craft paint, over which I painted Martha's  red glitter paint.

Mod Podged a black and white patterned paper to the top and bottom and then went around the edges with some black and white washi tape.

Do your family members send you random things when they clean out their junk drawers? Mine do. The Mumster sent me a bag of keys. I don’t know that Vampires use keys but they seemed to fit. I also used some keyholes from a pack by Tim Holtz . 

Embellished the top with red rhinestones and black pearls. Vampires have to be glam right?

Since they sleep during the day, do they say “day day” instead of “night night”?

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Glitter Frame and PicMonkey Halloween Printables

I’ve mentioned before that I love PicMonkey. That was before Halloween decorating started. and they added a whole bunch of new effects. Yowza. They have got quite the collection. No matter your Halloween decorating style…from gothic, to ghoulish, to scary, creepy, funny, zombie you name it.

What fun is a printable without a great frame though? I started with an unpainted filigree frame I picked up at Michaels:

and painted it black. After which I had the Rolling Stones stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

Once the paint was dry, I used a spray adhesive and alternated sprinkling black and clear glitter like a madwoman.

Then I just printed my printable,  adhered it to the back of the frame, and added a few rhinestones.
So here’s the printable I made completely in PicMonkey which I’m happy to share with you. Click on to bring to full resolution then right click to save as.

Of course with all of the fun effects, I couldn’t stop at just one printable:

And now for something truly frightening:

Mwaaaahhhh…It’s me in Witch Hat, crackle and zombie effect applied.

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Mod Podge and Vinyl H-OWL-oween Sign

Sharing a post I did for the Expressions Vinyl blog last month. This was a very fast project. The longest part was the Mod Podge dry time. 

I wanted to add some more sophistication to my Halloween décor, and also love metallics. The Silver Leaf  Expressions vinyl fit both of these requirements.

I started with a plain wood owl and a piece of scrapbook paper. I traced the owl on the paper, cut it out, adhered it to the owl with Mod Podge and let it dry.

While it was drying, I loaded my Cricut Expression with a sheet of Silver Leaf Expressions Vinyl and cut out the numbers “31” using the Plantin Schoolbook cart.

Once my owl was dry, I added my numbers. I also added some bling by using an oversized rhinestone swirl I had in my stash. I told you this was easy!

Craft fail save! When I traced my owl on paper I managed to get the border strip that isn’t really part of the paper. Rather than re-cut it I covered over those spots on the owl’s feet with vinyl scraps. Just cut them freehand and done.

I love the texture of the Silver Leaf vinyl. It really catches the light.

I hope you enjoyed this easy project ! Happy Howloween.

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Altered Skeleton Bottle

I’m always excited when Mr. Chocolate decides to try a new adult beverage because he always chooses stuff that comes in the coolest bottles and eventually they’ll be mine all mine mwaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.

I had fun last year making “Pick Your Poison” altered bottles, that I wanted to make another one.
I started with this empty bottle:

appropriately called Mischief.

I was going to use the paper you see underneath it then I decided to use this paper instead:

Fishnet! Yes, fishnet paper. I thought it screamed Halloween. Measured around my bottle, cut the paper and applied to the bottle with Matte finish Mod Podge, then tore some strips of black and white damask paper and slapped that on with the MP.

Once that was dry, I cut out a circle from the All Hallow’s Eve scrapbook paper shown here, applied it to the bottle with Antique Matte Mod Podge, then applied a rhinestone circle sticker.

I had a skeleton head left over from my coffin boxes and decided it would make a great bottle topper. First I wrapped the bottle neck with black and white baker’s twine, then kind of zig zag wraped black ribbon on top of that:

I also had some spider web paper left over from my coffin boxes so I made a pleated pinwheel to make a collar for Mr. Skully Head.

Carrying on my propensity to pun, I added a key from a package of Tim Holtz keys…a Skeleton Key .I crack me up.

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Skully Coffin Boxes

I’m having fun with a neutral Halloween palette again this year and black and white fits right in. You’ve probably seen these little coffin wood boxes at Michaels or other craft stores. Michaels had some for $.99 and some for $2.99 that make noise when you open them. Yes, I bought both kinds.

My camera battery was charging when I was making these so I didn’t get a lot of pics along the way but it’s pretty easy to follow along even w/out step by step pics.

Decide on your color scheme ( you could go bright and whimsical with this too). I painted my plain boxes black, let dry, then painted a layer of white school glue ( plain old white glue) over the black paint. Let almost dry and then went over that with white paint. Oooohhhh crackle crackle.

Ann at Make The Best of Things has a great tutorial here.

I traced around my boxes on the back side of the scrapbook paper I chose ( Recollections Spider Web) and cut out tops and bottoms for my boxes. Mod Podged those on using MP Matte Formula ( my go to).

While everything was drying, I grabbed a Bag O Skulls. Literally:

I picked these up last year at either Dollar Tree or Michaels or Target or somewhere I was scrounging around after season. I debated whether to leave them the color they were or paint. Went with paint.

Used Martha Stewart Craft paint….that stuff sticks to anything including cheap plastic skulls.  Went over that with Martha Stewart glitter paint in sterling.

These are fashionable skeleton heads. Must have glitter! Glued them to my boxes and embellished.

Pulled out RIP letters from my stash of alphabet embellishments. These were clear acrylic which didn’t show up well so I painted the back with a white paint pen.

In addition to the must have glitter, must have rhinestones. The black on black doesn’t show well here but I like it in the middle of the spider webs and it picks up the light.

Total cost: $3 (if that)

If you want to see another great coffin box idea, check out this one from Sarah at Alderberry Hill: A Glitzy Halloween Coffin

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