Planters to Ghost Decorations

 Hello Readers. Halloween is coming and you might want an easy fun decoration to put in front of your house so that trick-or-treaters know to come knock on your door. I thought of an easy one that you can put together quick.

 Take a planter and make a cute ghost.

I had a couple of outdoor plant stands similar to this and I realized they were the perfect shape to make a little Halloween ghost. This won't hurt the planter/plant stand in any way.

I got some white fabric from my sewing closet. A white sheet would also work great.

My planter still had dirt in it from the summer plants. I left it there to help weigh down the planter. It won't show anyway. I covered my planter with the white fabric. I draped it over the planter and tried to make sure each side was even in length. It doesn't need to be perfect though.  (You can trim any excess fabric if you need to.)

I pulled the fabric to the back of the planter. I tucked it under itself and pulled the 2 ends together. 

I pinned the ends together with a large safety pin. 

I actually pinned it twice to make sure the fabric won't blow around too much if it gets windy.

I got some black acrylic paint. These ghosts need eyes. This will not wash out. I wanted the eyes to last through any rain that might come but remember that it wont wash out of the fabric later. Don't use fabric that you don't want paint on forever.

I painted 2 round oval eyes on the fabric. It doesn't need any other decoration. This paint needs to dry over night.

 

I had 2 planters in this shape so I placed both in front of my house. I think they are Halloween-ish without being too scary for little kids who just want to collect free candy. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for your house.

 

***Year End Update- These were fun without being scary. I took them down after Halloween. 

 

The Last Minute Dragon

 Hello Readers. How are you doing? I am late, behind schedule and just all over the place in general. My mom had a stroke. She is recovering well but there has been a lot of back and forth so my schedule is a little off. I am happy and relieved my mom is doing better and everything else will work itself out too. But there is a little guy who wants to be a dragon. I am the sewing mom and I needed to get something together. 

I started with a red sweatshirt that was a hand-me-down and some red sweatpants. These are easy to find basics.

 I had to paint over the logo on the sweatshirt. I used a little acrylic paint to hide the white printing. 

The red paint will help hide that logo and so will the yellow chest I stitched on the front of the shirt.

The dragon from a favorite book, "There's No Such Thing As Dragons",  also has a yellow chest/belly so that is my inspiration. 

I added a couple horns to the hood of the sweatshirt. I cut out 4 horn shapes. I sewed 2 pieces together and added it to one side of the hood and then I did the same on the other side. 

I also made a little mask to attach to the front of the hood with Velcro. Do dragons have teeth? I assume yes.

You can see the Velcro on each side of the hood. There are pieces of Velcro on the back of the mask. The Velcro will let him take the mask on and off.

Now we get to the part where I cheated a little. We already had this dragon tail blanket/sleeping bag thing. This was ready to go and saved a lot of time. You can find them on Amazon. 

I filled it with balloons to fill out the tail and attached it to the sweatshirt. It has wings and spikes down the back. 

 It has wings and spikes down the back.

 

He said I sewed it very nicely and he just wanted some candy. I did give him some M&M's for taking these pictures.

I was happy I got it done before the weekend. I hope you are all well and I hope you get a lot of candy. 

***Chickie's Year End Review-He got candy and got to be a dragon. Win-Win!

T-shirt to Treat Bag

 Hello Readers. Halloween is coming. I don't like creepy spooky stuff. It freaks me out. I do like candy and so do my kids. I usually try to find something fun and candy related for my kids to do. My youngest wants to be a dragon and he would definitely like some candy. Where is he going to put all that candy? In this fun bag that he helped make. 

I started with a black t-shirt. Any t-shirt will do. 

I cut the neck area and the sleeves off the shirt. It won't fray so I just got to the cutting. Those narrow shoulder pieces are the handles of out new bag. 

The next thing I did was very important. I used my sewing machine to stitch across the bottom of the shirt. The bag needs to be closed because it needs to hold all that important candy. If your child is planning on really loading this bag up with candy make sure you make this seam very strong and secure.

Now, it was time for some fun. We wanted a jack-o-lantern on our bag. I used some chalk to give my child a pumpkin shape to work with. 

 I put newspapers inside the shirt to keep the paint from bleeding through the fabric and I let my son fill in the pumpkin with orange paint. He loves to paint so this was a fun project for him.

I added a stem to the pumpkin and let it dry for a few hours. 

Our pumpkin needed a face and I planned to let my son paint black eyes, nose and a mouth on the pumpkin. As usual, my plans are useless. My son wanted this character to be our inspiration. It was his bag so that is what we did. I drew this face with a small tube of acrylic paint. 

Here is a close up of our inspiration. His name is Goomba. He is from the Mario game. 

I wish you lots of fun and yummy candy no matter where you are or what you are doing. 

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

***Chickie's Year End Review-My son got free candy in this bag so it was truly loved.

A Candy Corn Fail?

 Hello Readers. Do you like candy corn? Honestly, I hate it. It is so over sweet it is too much for me. I love the color combination. That yellow and orange color combination always always appeals to me.  So what did I do to recreate that color combo? First I found a white shirt. Actually, I found 2. 

 These white t-shirts are from my husband. Yes, I have used a lot of his clothes. He agreed to it, I swear. I wanted to dip the shirts in yellow dye but leave the shoulders white. Then I would dye the bottom of the shirts orange. I thought it would be festive but not creepy for fall and Halloween.

I wanted to dye these 2 shirts to get the yellow and orange of these beautiful candies that I hate the taste of but love the look of. 

 I also wanted to try and use a cheaper method of dying the shirts. Would acrylic paint act like dye if I watered it down? I wanted to find out. (Short answer: Not really.) Acrylic paint is water based so I mixed in a lot of water and got very watery paint. I dipped the shirts in yellow water+paint and let it sit overnight. I let the shirts dry out and then did the same thing with orange water+paint. My 5 year old really liked mixing the paint and water and dipping the shirts into the dye bath. I let the shirts air dry completely before the next step.

I used a shirt that fit well to get the size and fit I wanted in the new shirt. 

 What would I wear with this candy corn shirt? Well, leggings seemed like a comfortable option. I found these black leggings at an outdoor clothes swap recently. It was great to have the swap outside where it was safer.

 They looked brand new but the elastic waistband was loose. It had broken or had been cut. I just reconnected it and stitched the waistband closed.

 I was happy enough with this craft. My son and I could could be candy corn twins. The idea of paint as a dye did not turn out as well as I had hoped. The colors were not bright and clear. The orange didn't show much at all. But it was a fun little project to do with my little guy so, that made it worth trying.He liked mixing the paint and dipping the shirts. (Full Disclosure: I gave him a donut to get these pictures.)

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself. And Happy Halloween if you are celebrating this holiday.

A Spider Shirt for Halloween

Hello Readers. Today is Halloween. At least in the U.S. Do parents in other countries let their children go door-to-door begging for candy on this day? I need to Google that. I am not really into Halloween but I decided to make something fun and easy to wear that was in the theme of the day.

 Full disclosure: I was inspired by a shirt on Pinterest where they used a button as the spider. You can see my inspiration here.

I started with a plain black t-shirt.

I used some lace from my sewing scraps. This is cheap polyester lace that can go in the washer and dryer. I didn't want anything too delicate. I need to be able to throw my clothes into the washer with no worries that they will be ruined.

I had this spider pin in a drawer for a while and you can see he suffered a couple injuries to his legs. I was sad to see that but I was going to assume that everyone would know it was a spider even with only 6 legs.

He is injured but still going to work today.

I hope the theme of the shirt is obvious. The lace is the spider web and the spider has been hard at work spinning it. I stitched the lace around most, but not all of the neck.

I liked the white thread connecting the spider to the web. It is just a simple piece of embroidery thread attached to the shirt under the lace and at the shoulder seam. (The original shirt had the spider below the lace neckline. I put my spider up on my shoulder. I couldn't place the spider lower on my chest. It looked really weird.  Maybe because my pin is more flashy but it did not look right sitting on one boob.)

This was my final shirt. I liked it and I can remove the pin to wash the shirt. The lace and embroidery thread are sewn on. It was in the right mood for the holiday but not too much of a costume. I wore this in public and didn't feel too conspicuous.

 

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

*Year end update- I loved making this shirt and I loved wearing it too. It's a keeper.

***The Next Year End update-  Another year has past. I wore this shirt again and it was a hit at work and my son's preschool.