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.

You should have seen the face of my friend from the quilt store when I told her why I was buying gray fabric. For some strange reason she seemed to think it was rather morbid to make a stuffed tombstone. I can’t imagine why.

The pattern for this is available here in a package with yesterday’s candy corn pattern.

My sophisticated, gothic tree was skewing heavily ivory and black, so I wanted to bring in a little more silver sparkle. But I couldn’t find a fabric that was silvery and sparkly without veering off into astronaut uniform territory, so I had to make it.

I’d never seen the results of trying to heat emboss fabric, but it actually worked swimmingly. I rubbed the fabric piece with a clear inkpad, pored the powder over the top and shook off the excess. It actually worked a little better than I expected because the powder clung to every fiber on the fabric, so I had to scrape some off with my fingers. I was going for a mottled, stony look, not a glossy silver tombstone.

Then I stamped the letters in black and embossed them with black powder.

When the powder is heated, it melts into little beads that look like mercury. If you stop here they’ll eventually flake off, but if you keep heating they’ll eventually start to get absorbed by the fabric and then they just become a part of it.

I’m pleased with these, and the construction is really simple. I just don’t think anything can be very morbid when they’re made into a softie.

I initially had this idea for a Christmas tree, but it was an easy swap out for Halloween. This one will be a perfect fit for my kid friendly, colorful, whimsical tree, but I think a cauldron of these would be adorable on a table, or strung together as a garland somewhere.

It really couldn’t be much simpler. I used 1 1/2″ wooden balls and painted them in a base color that matched my glitter. Then I covered in glue and glitter. If you really didn’t want to deal with the mess you could skip the glitter step, but I never miss an opportunity for glitter.

Cut a piece of cellophane to 3″ x 6″. I found it available by the roll in the gift wrap section, but it also comes sold in a bag like tissue paper. I chose one that had a little opalescent sheen to it, because like I said, I don’t miss an opportunity for glitter. Wrap the cellophane around the ball and twist the edges, just like wrapping up a candy.

Tie a bow on one end, and then cut a piece of ribbon about a foot long. Tie a loop in one end to be the hanger, and then use the tails to tie a bow around the other end of the candy.

These make up really fast, especially in large batches, and are so cheap that I think they’d make great little festive trinkets for teachers or neighbors, or as little hostess gifts for whatever party you’re going to on the big day.

This project was one of those that started someplace entirely different and I only ended up here through a series of failures. I wanted to make a caramel apple ornament, and after that misstep, I went back to the drawing board. My local scrapbook store was hosting a collage canvas class from super creative Emily Falconbridge, and even though I couldn’t make it to the class, just looking at her project sent me off in a whole new direction.

This pieced background was totally a lift from Emily’s project. I used a 5 x 7 canvas board, painted the edge that would show a nice green color, cut up a whole bunch of orange paper, and started painting it down.

I’m actually not a superfan of Mod Podge. It’s a little on the spendy side for what you get, I think, and I actually prefer the results when you use an artist’s quality sealer. Like this, but it’s also available in a matte finish.

Then I wanted to get as much 3-D action as possible, so I used a real popsicle stick, cut the letters out of chipboard before painting and glittering them, and raised the candy corn with foam tape. I drew the apple shape on some caramel colored cardstock and inked the edges.

Since I plan on using this as a Halloween tree ornament, I had to make it look good from all sides. So I flipped it over to address the opposite of a treat.

I was brainstorming for days to come up with a visual representation of a trick. I came *thisclose* to gluing a roll of toilet paper to the back. I thought a broken mirror was a little classier.

I wanted the two different sides to be kind of visually opposite too, so I just decoupaged one solid piece, in a lighter orange than I used before, on the trick side.

I cut the mirror out of fun foam so I could get some 3-D on this side too, then covered it in glitter. Same for the letters, chipboard, paint, glitter. To make the broken glass I took a piece of tinfoil, wrinkled it up, unfolded it, and then cut it in the shape of the mirror. A couple of stamps and some inking around the outside made it look a little spookier than the happy Treat side.

I’m planning on just tucking these in the branches of the tree, but if you want a hanger I’d glue each end of a piece of ribbon down the sides to make a loop on the top. I think this could be cute as a doorhanger too. You could flip the canvas so that anyone coming near would know exactly what they’re getting themselves into.

I drew the apple shape and the mirror shape, so as a start to our Halloween festivities, I thought I’d share my pattern. It’s available as a free pdf download by clicking this link.