It’s safe to say that I’m not exactly the world’s foremost expert on the Victorian. Or Gothic. I don’t really even know how those two things are different. Or not. I just had this vision in my head of a Halloween full of crows and Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Miss Havisham and Edgar Allen Poe. But for all I know I’ve been committing all kinds of historical and design atrocities as I’ve followed this vague notion of an idea.

Despite my lack of concrete knowledge, I knew that Poe’s creepy writings had to end up on here somewhere. I searched around the internet to find a few excerpts that were sufficiently spooky, and then set about making an ornament to display them.

I found these signs at Michael’s in the aisle with all the naked wood. It came with a thick rope hanger like something you’d see hanging on a pirate ship. I pulled off the rope and painted it a creamy ivory color, and then rubbed a black ink pad around the edges.

I formatted the quotes on my computer, and then searched around online to find out how to make my own rubons. It was really easy. I took a transparency meant for a laser printer, and then ran it through my inkjet printer. The ink from my printer beads up on the transparency, so you can transfer it without it drying. The most important thing is to make sure that you set your printer to print in mirror image, so that the text won’t be backwards when you transfer it. You can also spray your transparency with a spray hair gel to make it even easier to transfer. I had mixed results with this, so I’m not certain it’s necessary, but it sure didn’t hurt anything.

Then I just stapled a new ribbon on the top to use as a hanger.

Doing a whole bunch of these took me about a day, but they completely set the whole tone for this tree I’ve been trying to get out of my head and into reality.

Today’s the big Halloween party over at A Fanciful Twist, so I’m popping in for a rare weekend appearance to share in the festivities.

I’ve been obsessed with spiderwebs this year, and it all started from this project. I still have two more ornaments to share that draw on the simple spider. I just couldn’t seem to get over those graceful curves. During last year’s Christmas festivities, my little quilled snowflake got a lot of appreciation, so I wanted to go back to quilling to see what else I could come up with. A spiderweb seemed like a natural.

To begin, cut a whole mess of 1/4″ wide strips from cardstock. I used a really stiff metallic cardstock that worked out great. The thicker weight was more difficult to roll up and bend, but since this design is so open, I don’t know that a really thin weight of paper would hold up very well. The stiffness really worked in my favor. If you just must use a thinner paper, I’d try spraying the whole thing with a spray sealer at the end to give it some stiffening after the fact.

From those 1/4″ wide strips cut:
4 strips at 6 inches
8 strips at 3 inches
8 strips at 1/2 inch

Then we’ll take those strips and make the shapes we need out of them. More specific quilling instructions are available on that original quilling post, including all those different shapes, but it’s super easy. We’re just talking about rolling up paper here.

Fold the 6 inch strips in half to make a big V.

Roll each end of the 3 inch strips towards the center to make a scroll.

Roll the 1/2 inch strips up to make a loose circle.

I rolled my 3 inch strips into a loose circle here, which will work if you want to save yourself a step, but if you roll up both ends you’ll get that little fleur de lis look when you’re all done.

With all your pieces made, it’s time to begin construction, which starts with the arms of the web. Glue two of your V’s together at the point, and allow to dry. A bobby pin works great to hold things together until the glue kicks in, and prevents any little fuzzy helpers from knocking things around and destroying them. This project was very seductive to those dang cats of mine.

Then come in with your other two V’s and glue those points to the points of what’s already glued together to create a bunch of little spokes.

Then it’s time to bridge all those little spans. Start with the 1/2″ loose rounds and unroll them completely. Rolling them up gave them a little flexibility and put a curve into them that we need for this part. If we hadn’t taken the time to roll it up, it would just bend awkwardly instead of suggesting that graceful little drape of a real spiderweb. Glue one end of the 1/2″ piece to one arm, and the other end to another, a little less than halfway up the arm. Use your bobby pins to hold them in place.

Unroll your 3 inch scrolls, leaving that last roll in place. Glue each end down on one of the arms just like you did with the smaller pieces, this time up right near the top leaving that last curl to reach for the center. Bobby pins again to keep it stuck until the glue dries.

I found it a little awkward to work with for the first few I made. It’s a little fragile until you get some of those spans in place, and it can be a little fiddlesome to get those positioned right, but it just takes practice. I found it really helpful to alternate each arm and allowing it to dry so I didn’t have to deal with getting both sides in place at the same time. But after a while I had such a rhythm down I was throwing them all on at once.

I tied a little bit of fishing line on these and used them to hang from my Gothic Halloween tree, but I kind of want to put them everywhere. I made so many of them that I think I’m going to tie them together to create a garland going down the stairs, but I also like the idea of making a wreath out of them, or just propping them up around the house so there’s a little bit of Halloween in every corner.

I’ve got a few leftover that I’m going to toss into my etsy shop, but in honor of the Halloween party I thought another giveaway would only make sense. Leave a comment on this post and I’ll draw a name at 8pm my time Monday night. I’ll send the lucky winner a set of 6 of these so they have enough to use on a tree, string together for a garland, or just hang from the ceiling in the entryway to creep out trick-or-treaters.

Good luck!

And the winner is…. Autumn of Autumn’s Antics! Email me and I’ll get those right out to you!

I have to confess, I’m particularly proud of this one.

When I first started brainstorming Halloween ornament ideas, and I got all confused with which direction I wanted to go, I loved the idea of a black and white Haunted Mansion kind of tree, and the whimsical idea, and for a brief moment I thought I was going to try to find a way to marry the two styles.

You can’t get too far into a Victorian style without hitting upon a cameo, but I thought that if I did monster silhouettes, it would bridge that gap between the Victorian and the whimsical. I loved the result, but I just couldn’t stop the ideas from flowing, so the rest is history.

Each piece is cut from felted wool and sewn together with a regular old whipstitch. A blanket stitch would look beautiful, but I always forget how to get that started, so I just kept it easy on myself.

Then it’s just a simple pillow construction. Two black circles right sides together, with a ribbon hanger sandwiched between them, raw edges in the seam allowance. Sewn with a 1/4″ seam allowance, leaving about 1″ open at the bottom for turning right side out, stuffed with a couple of layers of batting and then the hole’s sewn shut. Easy peasy.

I’ve decided to just give this pattern away to you guys as my little Halloween present. Just click here for the free pdf and stitch away.

It’s become a tradition to put framed family pictures right into our Christmas tree, and I thought doing the same for Halloween would evoke the Haunted Mansion vibe I was going for on one of my trees. I didn’t happen to have any particularly spooky relatives, so I turned to the internet for help.

I got that great portrait of the man laughing from this amazing site. Vintage Printable is just one of the greatest resources there is, particularly if you’re looking for something to frame. Just incredible, nearly too good to be true stuff.

I can’t find where I got the image of the girl. Maybe a google image search? That’s my standard M.O.

I pasted them both into a word document, sized them the right size for the cheap dollar store frames I got, and sent them off to the copy shop for printing. For the packing tape image transfer method, the pictures have to come off a machine that uses toner. So an old-fashioned copier is the way to go.

Cover the whole image with clear packing tape, overlapping each layer slightly to make sure you get the whole thing covered. Then soak the whole thing in water until the paper begins to dissolve leaving the toner stuck to the tape. Since I’m going for spooky, it worked in my favor to not be super clean. I left some of the paper in place to add to the distress of the image.

I cut a couple of pieces of cardstock to the size that would fit my frame and stuck them to the tape transfers. I used this cool gray parchment style paper that kept the eerie distressed look going.

Then just cut off the rest of the tape and stick the images inside your frame.

I just prop these up in the branches of my tree, but you could put these anywhere. A whole series of these hanging on the wall might even be too creepy for me to live with. I think I’ll keep mine on a smaller scale.

One of my favorite ways to get inspiration for holiday decorations is to shop around at all the cute stores, find something great but really expensive, and then go home and use it as a jumping off point to make something wonderful by hand. I saw these little mass produced witch brooms for sale for over $10 each, and I thought, “Pshaw. I could so make that.”

You will need:

cardboard stick used for candy making. I got mine in the candy aisle at Michael’s and then painted it black with acrylic paint
Orange ribbon
Black ribbon
Green excelsior. Look for it near the baskets, or maybe in floral design. It’s the stuff normally used to line the container.
Hot glue gun

Tear off a hunk of the excelsior. Spread hot glue all over the stick, adhere to the excelsior and then roll up, using more glue as you go. Watch your fingers, it’s easy to burn yourself during this step as the glue seeps through the nest of excelsior.

Wrap orange ribbon around the excelsior and secure with hot glue.

Tie a loop out of black ribbon, and stick to the back of the broom handle with a dot of hot glue.

You could leave the hanging loop off if you use this as a mantle decoration, or it would be great to decorate a package for any hostess gifts, or even as a hostess gift itself. But with the hanging loop you could use it as an ornament like I will, or just hang it anywhere you need a little something.