Bingo! More Halloween Earrings

Have to get in one last Halloween project--more earrings! I found this cute monster/Halloween paper to make earrings from bingo chips. The bingo chips are 5/8" in diameter & I have a circle punch just that size--yea! I love it when I don't have to trim or sand to get things to fit perfectly. I think the most fun part of making my paper-embellished jewelry is picking out the paper designs :-)

So, I always use a strong adhesive like SU! Crystal Effects to glue the paper to the chip--on things where the paper is the exact same size & so the resin may not even touch the chip, if it's not on securely, the paper, even covered with resin, can come right off! Ask me how I know...

Before spreading the waterproof Colores Doming Resin over the paper, I sealed it (front AND back) with Mod Podge--very important step!!

Once the resin cured (I leave it overnight), I screwed in the little eye-screws at the top (by hand--if you're patient, you don't need to drill a hole first) and attached the earwires.

This last picture shows the back of another pair so you can see what the bingo chips look like (I glue the paper to the actual back of the chip. The side with the numbers isn't smooth--besides, I think being able to see that something is a game piece makes it more interesting. For this pair, I'd actually drilled a hole through the chip and used an eye pin so that I could add a bead dangle. You could also just add a second eye screw too. I'm starting to get handy with the jewelry tools, I tell ya!

& if you really like my monster earrings--they're on sale in my etsy shop! (see side widget)

Bingo! More Halloween Earrings

Haunted House Treats

The Bradley Farm Haunted House asked me to sponsor a room this year so I made these Halloween treats using "Batty For You." I made about 300 of these for a "monster" to pass out to the kids as they go through "my" room. These are pretty easy to make--but 300 of them do take a while (there's a whole 'nother plastic bag not pictured)! There was a lot of gluing during So You Think You Can Dance! The candy sandwiched inside the black & pumpkin pie cardstock are peanut butter caramels. The wax paper is not very conducive to adhesive--Snail won't stay but Crystal Effects & Tombow Mono will--you just have to press & hold for a few seconds (so yeah, ---took a while!)

Haunted House Treats

Pumpkin Poop with My Digital Studio

I needed something else for the fall festival I'm doing on Saturday & decided to make "Pumpkin Poop" for the first time. It's definitely not an original idea--you can see samples all over Splitcoaststampers (& that's where I got the poem). My take on it was to try my first project with My Digital Studio (Stampin' Up!'s new digital scrapbooking & card making program) to mass produce these puppies.

The "Eat, Drink & Be Scary" set is included in MDS--which is GREAT because I don't own it! I love that you can do some things with the program you can't with the real thing. For example, the "punches" can be resized so you can always mat them (like the curly label one here). Then, you always have a perfect bow. There isn't a Garden Green ribbon in "real life" either. Then, I didn't have to worry about the expense of using up all my brads either. One tip--give elements a drop shadow to add to the 3D illusion.

For the project itself, I was able to print out 10 of the white part on a piece of whisper white cardstock. Then I matted it with Garden Green cardstock folded over a cello bag of candy corn.

The only tricky thing is that MDS doesn't let you "divide" up a stamp yet to crop or color only part of it. However, because it does let you open an element in a different photo editting program, I was able to open the project  in Photoshop Elements to color only the pumpkin "Pumpkin Pie". In MDS, click "Export to jpg" under "Share Project". Then just find the jpg to open it in your photo editting program.

Pumpkin Poop with My Digital Studio

Shrink Plastic Halloween Earrings

Aren't these fun? The images are from the current SU! set "Batty For You" & the retired set "Bitty Boos." I made them with black shrink plastic (like Shrinky Dinks). I really like the black because I don't think it looks obvious that it's shrink plastic.

First, stamp the image (straight up & down--it's a slippery surface--you can sand it in a criss-cross pattern to prevent sliding if you don't have a steady hand). On black, I recommend Chalk Inks...they showed up much more vibrantly than Craft or pigment inks.

Then punch the image out (I used a 1 3/8" circle punch for the image & a 1/8" hole for the jump ring). Be very careful when punching because the ink can smear. Also, make sure you didn't get ink on your punch because then you could transfer it to the next image. Next, all you need is a heat tool to shrink them. I keep a paper piercer in the little hole to keep the plastic from blowing away when I'm trying to heat it. The finished size is about 1/2" in diameter--perfect for casual earrings.

Finally, just add jump rings & earring findings. Going to a Halloween party? Give the hostess a pair of  "The ghostess with the mostest" earrings :)

Shrink Plastic Halloween Earrings

Fall Festival Halloween Necklace

I've just been confirmed to participate in a Fall Festival at the Brambleton Town Center in Ashburn, VA on Oct. 10, 2-7 pm--so I thought I'd post a Halloween project I made for it (I've got it for sale in my Etsy store too). I usually do Christmas fairs so it was fun for me to make some Halloween items. Come visit me if you're in the area!!

I'd make some glazed mini-domino pendants with this same skeleton and found out that boys liked them so I decided to make some that were a little simpler and geared towards the tween set with the leather necklaces. I colored them with chalk inks and dabbed gently with my finger or a make-up sponge until the colors looked blended. Next, heat set the ink with a heat gun. I found if I did that before stamping the main image, the stamp doesn't slide and the image is crisper. So the main image was stamped with black Staz-On. I used a sharpie to color the sides black.

I invested in a Dremel hand drill and mini-vise that clamps onto my desk this summer so drilling a little hole near the top of the domino was a cinch. Then I used a jump ring to add the domino to the necklace. I also made a bunch of girly ones too--I'll post when I get better pics but here's one...an Irish Dancer:

Fall Festival Halloween Necklace