Krista, Author at While He Was Napping

October 8, 2013 by Krista

{Mabey She Made It} Boo Pennant Banner

Today, I want to introduce you to another one of my new contributors! Meet Lisa. She’s a doll and has some amazingly creative ideas that she always manages to pull off flawlessly. She’s awesome and super sweet. So, let’s get to the good stuff. Here’s Lisa!

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Hi there! I’m Lisa Mabey and I blog at Mabey She Made It about DIY projects, crafting, and sewing. I’m excited to show you a little Halloween project today that would be really cute by your candy bowl or on a little shelf that you’re decorating for Halloween. Not only is it simple to do, but it’s made from things you probably already have around: straws, string, patterned paper, empty soup cans…

Halloween Pennant Banner | Mabey She Made It

I don’t know about you, but I don’t personally care for the creepy, spooky, or macabre elements of Halloween. My Halloween style is typically lighter and more fun since I tend to ignore the darker side of the holiday. This Boo Pennant Banner showcases that preference, and I hope you like it as well!

I’ve been really excited about watercoloring lately, and gray watercolored letters seemed perfect for Halloween. I started with three pieces of watercolor paper (2-1/4″ x 3-1/2″) and sketched a letter onto each one. For my letters, I found a fancy font I liked (I used FoglihtenNo04) and freehanded the shape of the letters with a pencil. If you didn’t want to freehand, you could easily print your word and copy it onto your paper though.

Once you’ve got your sketch, it’s time to start painting! I use water-based dye ink to watercolor with, but watercolor paint would (obviously) also work. If you do use a water-based dye ink, you may want to use gray instead of black. Gray ink stays gray when you dilute it with water, but black ink may come out purple if you watercolor with it.

Start on one side of each letter, and work your way to the other side so that the color is darker on the same side of each letter. Blend until you like the results, and let dry. Now erase all your pencil marks.

You can either leave it like that, or outline the letter with a fine-tipped marker. I liked the definition the outlining gave since the gray was pretty light on the far side of each letter.

Then cut each piece into a pennant shape, punch a small hole in the top corners, and thread some baker’s twine through the holes to create your pennant banner. To keep the ends of the baker’s twine together so it’s easy to thread, put a little glue on your fingers and twist the twine “tighter” and let it dry. It’s fabulously easy to thread once the end is dry.

Then punch holes in the tops of gray striped paper straws and tie the baker’s twine to the straws. You now have the pennant banner part complete!

Paint two cans black, and let them dry. I used a black metallic paint, so it’s a bit sparkly.

Then adhere patterned paper around the cans and finish with some wide ribbon.

Now fill them with candy and stick the pennant banner into the cans to display wherever you need a little Halloween cheer! This would be really cute as part of a vignette or with a small candy dish in front of it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed making a Halloween Pennant Banner with me, and that you’ll come visit me at Mabey She Made It for more craft ideas, DIY projects, and sewing!

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Isn’t that just too cute and totally my kind of Halloween decor. I don’t do the icky, gross part of Halloween. Zombies, guts and gory blood are not my thing. I like creepy and cute. This is perfect. Insanely adorable and I love that it would fit into sooo many different themes and kinds of Halloween decor! And, you don’t have to go buy anything. Use what you have. Go check out Mabey She Made It. Lisa has awesome things happening over there! Go, go, GO!

Find out more about Lisa on the Contributor’s Page. You can also find her here:

This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.

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October 8, 2013 by Krista

{Printable} Halloween Bucket List & Activities

How did we get an entire week into October already? Are you a Halloween fan? Do you have a Halloween Bucket List that you want to complete this month?

I love Halloween. Not the creepy, gross, scary parts though because gore just isn’t fun for me. I like cute Halloween. And you better believe my kids and I celebrate all month long!

There are some things we’d like to do before October passes us by, so I made a Halloween Bucket List for us. There are games, treats and snacks, and fun things to do! Halloween is such a fun holiday. My mom didn’t love Halloween and we didn’t celebrate much growing up. I think I’m making up for it now. And I don’t see anything wrong with that!

You are more than welcome to print off your own copy so you can celebrate too! Right click and save to your computer. I’ve also attached links under the print to some of the activities, so you can find out how to do them too (and in case I forget, ha). Happy Halloweening and, most of all, enjoy and stay safe!

Spooky Bowling – http://www.jeanetics.net/2010/10/fall-party.html (at the bottom of the post)
Glowing Pumpkin Jars – http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/09/glowing-pumpkin-jars.html or http://www.skiptomylou.org/2008/10/10/halloween-votives/
Jack-O-Lantern Orange – http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Jack-o–Lantern-Oranges
Hot Dog Mummies – http://recipes.smartyhadaparty.com/crescent-mummy-dogs/
Pumpkin Spice Play Dough – http://whilehewasnapping.com/2013/09/pumpkin-spice-play-dough.html
Q-Tip Skeletons – http://funfamilycrafts.com/q-tip-skeleton/
Candy Corn Counting Game – http://www.thetaylor-house.com/2013/09/19/halloween-kids-activity-candy-corn-counting-free-printable.html
Glow in the Dark Slime – http://domesticcharm.blogspot.com/2011/10/glow-in-dark-slime.html
Apple Cider & Orange Cocoa – http://homeiswheretheboatis.net/2011/10/27/ghostly-peeps-fun/ (recipe toward the bottom of the post)
Spiderweb Nachos – http://whilehewasnapping.com/2010/10/october-spooktacular-spiderweb-nachos.html

Any other questions… let me know!

This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.

October 4, 2013 by Krista

Weekend Wander #143

Welcome, my friends! How was your week? If you’ve joined us this week, a super big welcome to you! It must be October, there are Halloween posts everywhere! I love it. So fun! We didn’t celebrate Halloween when I was growing up, my mom thought it was to gruesome and yucky. I don’t like the gruesome and yucky, but the scary and creepy I can get behind. A quick recap, in case you missed any of it:

Chalkboard Halloween Poem Printable

DIY Potion Bottles

20 Halloween Projects, Recipes & Kid’s Activities

Pumpkin Pendants {Artsy VaVa Contributor Post}

And from last week:

If you don’t watch Big Bang Theory, you should.

Check out Raj’s Superman Mug over at Craft A Spell.

How warm and cozy does this adorable scarf look?

Check out the details at Vixen Made!

Ready to Party? Annnnnnnddd… GO!

This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.

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October 3, 2013 by Krista

DIY Witch’s Potion Bottles

These fun and easy Potion Bottles are the perfect addition to your DIY Halloween Decor! It’s the perfect spooky decor project to upcycle all your empty bottles and there are even printable potion bottle labels for you to download that will make this Halloween craft even easier! Bring out all the spooks and step up your Halloween Witch Decor with a great set of DIY potion bottles for all your witchy decorating.

Materials:

– Various bottles and containers (I will go through the ones I used in just a bit)

– Matte brown spray paint

– Sandpaper

– Potion Labels

– Glue gun & glue sticks

– Coffee grounds

– Shallow pans/baking sheets & a small pot

– Oven & Stove

Directions

THE BOTTLES:

– Wash your containers and bottles. Scrape all the labels and goo off. I washed mine in the dishwasher and then soaked the bottles that still had labels or glue on them in hot water for about 20 minutes. The hot water soak will loosen the glue on the labels. Peel off the glue and labels. I had a few that were particularly stubborn (those Swedes know how to attach a label! One of the bottles I used was from IKEA…) and I used a Goo-Gone-soaked paper towel on them to get them clean.

– Use the spray paint and paint your bottles. I did this with the majority of my bottles, but there were three glass bottles I left. I’ll go over that process in a moment. I started off with the idea to do a mod podge stain on them, but it was taking FOREVER to get the shade I wanted. So, I canned that idea and just settled on the spray paint. If you want a lighter finish on the bottles, stand back a little further than usual when you paint them. That way, you’ll just “dust” them, instead of a full-on layer of paint. I was painting these on my kitchen island one stormy day and didn’t have a lot of space to play with so they ended up a little darker than I had first planned on making them. Make sure you paint the lids too. Let dry thoroughly.

– Lightly sand the bottles to give them an aged appearance. Be careful not to sand off too much paint. This bottle was an old vitamin bottle, so I didn’t paint it. But, you can get the idea of the texturing you’re after.

For the glass bottles, I wanted to age them and started off sanding them with sand paper. I’m an impatient crafter and after about five minutes of practically immeasurable progress I ditched the sandpaper and grabbed my bottle of glass etching cream from the cupboard. It worked fabulously. The hardest part was trying to apply the paste randomly. Dang OCD tendencies. Let bottles and cream stand 5-10 minutes… or until you remember you’re in the middle of a project. Rinse and wipe dry with a paper towel. Don’t forget to paint the lids for these bottles.

THE LABELS:

– Print off the DIY Witch’s Potion Bottles labels or make your own. I used a laser printer to keep the ink from smearing. I didn’t try it with an inkjet, so I don’t know how smeared they’d end up. It might look like great aging, I really don’t know. Also I printed mine on card stock. Worked like a charm, none of them ripped.

– Preheat the oven to 200F (90C).

– On the stove heat about two (2) cups of water with a quarter (1/4) cup of coffee grounds. I hate the smell of coffee, so this was the worst part for me. Heat to warm, but not so warm you can’t touch it. I had my hands in this up to my palms.

– Okay, now decide if you want to cut your labels apart before you stain them or after. I did it after. But, you might get some neater staining on the edges if you cut them apart before. In a shallow pan, lay down your sheets of (or the cut apart) labels and use a small cup to pour the coffee over the paper. Push the paper down against the pan to help it soak up the liquid. Let stand 3-5 minutes or so. The longer it stands the darker the labels will be. Drain excess coffee back into the pot.

– Put the labels and the baking tray in the oven for 5-10 minutes. If you cut the labels apart before you stained them, it’ll be closer to five. If you didn’t cut them apart, it’ll be closer to 10. When the paper is dry enough you can handle it without it tearing, take the tray out of the oven and carefully pick up the paper. Holding the paper so that it is hanging over the pan, use a paper towel and gently dab it off. This will remove any coffee grounds and extra liquid. Hang to dry if possible. (You can leave the paper in the oven longer and it will dry out faster. Keep an eye out though. Paper is flammable…)

– Once your labels are dry, cut them apart if you haven’t already, and use the glue gun to attach them to the bottles. I found that gluing in stages worked the best. And get as close to the edges as you can with the glue. I started in the middle and put glue on that, then stuck it to the bottle. Then I’d glue each end one at a time.

– Then I took sandpaper and lightly sanded the labels to age them. Don’t go too crazy. You’ll rip your stain off or tear the paper. Lightly, my friends, is key.

Once the labels are on the jars, you can fill them. Most of mine are actually empty. Easier to store that way. And less hazardous if my boys decide they need to play “potions” while I’m hiding in, er… uhm, using… the bathroom.

If you’re interested, below is a list of the bottles and jars I used in my DIY Witch’s Potion Bottles, as well as a list of filler ideas. The blank fillers were ones that have labels, but I don’t have actual filler ideas. Sorry. Enjoy! Happy Potion-Making!

October 2, 2013 by Krista

{Printable} Halloween Chalkboard Poem

Welcome to Day 2 of this year’s October Spooktacular! Did you check out yesterday’s project? Virginia shared a super adorable set of pumpkin pendants! Be sure to check them out.

Now are you ready for some more amazing Spooktacular fun today? Keep reading and you’ll be rewarded with free printables. That’s right, free. You know you want it. Let’s get to it, shall we?!

So, I haven’t jumped on the chalkboard bandwagon yet, as far as printables are concerned. But, that’s about to change. I’ve got a printable for you that will add some haunted, spooky Halloween goodness to your decor. Because who doesn’t love a good chalkboard printable? You’ll love this Halloween Chalkboard Poem, I promise.

Last month, I posted on Over the Big Moon, a DIY chalkboard tutorial and displayed it with Fall decor and Halloween decor. The poem is my own little creation and first appeared on my Halloween Chalkboard.

So, for your printing pleasure:

Click HERE to download your watermark-free version of this Halloween Chalkboard Poem. You’ll have to download the file, save it to your computer and then print it. If you have any problems, let me know!

This Halloween Chalkboard Poem is formatted to 8×10″ and designed to be printed on white paper or card stock. Enjoy the print!

And now comes all the legal disclaimers… I retain all copyrights. Print is for personal use only. This print, nor any form or part of this print, may be sold, altered or transformed for profit, monetary or otherwise. Thank you for respecting the time and creativity that went into designing this image.

If you would like to share this Halloween Chalkboard Poem printable, please link back to this page and not the download page. Thank you. You’re the best.

This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.

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