Halloween Tutorial Roundup

It's October already!

So...I thought I'd post a roundup of all of my Halloween themed crafts!

(P.S.  the photo above is not one of my crafts (the kit is from Target), but reminds me of the polymer clay decorated pumpkin tutorial I did last year!)

Beading Patterns:

witch hat earrings

Polymer Clay Tutorials:

polymer clay decorated pumpkin

spiderweb and skull

Costumes:

Dia de los Muertos, Sugar Skull, Dead Bride Costume

Lalaloopsy Costume Tutorial

Happy Crafting!

Happy Earth Day!

Hope everyone has a wonderful day today!

The weather here is less than wonderful (maybe the Earth is trying to tell us something)...but that's okay!

Why don't you celebrate Earth Day today with some Earth-Friendly Crafts (via MarthaStewart.com)!

I'm sure that The Crafty Crow has some great ideas too!

You can find more of my upcycled bracelets here.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

....and Yippeeee....

I made the top 10 in the audition for SYTYC!

That means that I will be participating in the next session (session 3) of SYTYC!

Thanks to all who voted!

Want to know which craft was mine???

It was the Snuggaroo!

I will be posting a tutorial soon:)

Hope that everyone has a wonderful and special day!

Clay Flowers

I've been receiving Martha Stewart Craft of the Day e-mails. Today it was a clay project...so I had to share! It's a project for making flowers out of an air dry clay, but I also think it could work with polymer clay. I think that the Sculpey ultra light clay would work especially well.

Clay Hydrangeas:

photo from marthastewart.com

Merry Christmas!

... and Happy Holidays!

My kids and I made this Merry Christmas sign today. It was so much fun, and now I have something really special to add to our collection of Christmas decorations. When we pull it out next year, we will be able to remember how Sienna,2, colored/scribbled in the "M", how Ramona ,6, helped me write many of the letters, and how Charles, 4, colored in one of the "R's" like a candy cane! ....Oh, the memories:)...

It was easy to make too. All we needed was some construction paper, crayons, glue and twine. I was inspired to make it after reading this very inspiring and fun blog....who was inspired by this creative blog.

Fun Finds...

I've decided to share some fun things that I have found online recently.

• First, I wanted to share this wonderful blog that is full of great crafts to do with your kids. It is called the Craft Crow and would be a great resource for teachers too.
  
• Here are some really cute, free printable gift tags from Inside a Black Apple. You can take maya*made's tips and print them on brown paper bags...for some "green wrapping and brown tagging". You also must check out her snowflake cutting tutorial.
  
• Grosgrain shared a wonderful doll making tutorial from Martha Stewart.
  
• I finally signed up for Project Wonderful and have free ad space on my blog! For some reason, I was really intimidated by it, but it turned out to be really easy to set up...
  
• Creature Comforts has some free printable cards. They also have lots of other free printable items on their blog...like gift tags.
  
• Xerox is giving us the opportunity to send free thank you post cards in support of our troops.
  
• Tina T. has a great polymer clay tutorial on dried flowers.
  
• A Foothill Home Companion shares how to make origami stars.
  
• I have used this recipe many times, and found it a while back. It is a recipe for microwave caramel corn. It is really easy and would make a wonderful gift!

cookie cutters...not just for cutting cookies!

I went to a friend's Pampered Chef party this weekend, and she had the cutest Halloween shaped tortilla chips that she made with the help of some cookie cutters. Recently, I have been using a cookie cutter to cut my kid's peanut butter sandwiches into different shapes. They love it! It got me thinking....what else can you do with a cookie cutter?

Check this out!:

218+ Ways to use A Cookie Cutter

Wow that's a lot of uses!

and look at this:

Cookie Cutter Crayons

What a fun and creative way to make your broken and old crayons new again!

My Etsy cookie cutter finds:

cute boxed gift sets by ATCC

this one is Halloween themed~

want to design a cookie cutter?FrostedGarden makes custom cookie cutters:
want a cookie cutter shaped like your dog?look at this schnauzer one by DogTowne:
PressDough has multi-cutters..."They are strategically arranged to minimize surface area and maximize the number of cutouts."*** update: Want a chance to win one of these clever multi-cookie cutters?...Press Dough is holding a weekly giveaway as a promotion for the countdown to the holidays!all you need to do is register here:http://www.pressdough.com/store/register.phpand your name will be entered in a weekly drawing!I'm going over to register right now!for more info on the giveaway:http://pressdough.blogspot.com/2008/09/cookie-cutter-giveaway.html*** and I even found a cookie cutter game!:Cookie Cutter: TwistedHave fun with your cookie cutters!