Halloween Black Cats are finished and etsy start up

     I've thought about it for years, and now I've got an open etsy shop called... (what else?) Victoria Lavender. I finished my Halloween Black Cats and they each have their own candy box now.

     These are some of the photos of the kitties at etsy.  Also check out my link to learn how to needle felt with videos.

Handmade Black Cats for Halloween

I've found a new craft, it's called needle felting. Wool roving and barbed, very sharp needles. Not a craft to do carelessly. But what a great way to relieve stress! The needle is jabbed hundreds of times as you create the shape you are after. I have 6 parts to a cat. Body, head and 4 limbs all joined by the needle jabs. It takes an afternoon to create the cat and another afternoon to dress her. I've made five. They all have a candy box that I've dressed up too.

Halloween Paper Mache Trio

My favorite craft this season! As with the the pumpkin (a few posts back) I've used paper mache and paper clay to create these fine little fellows

I need to start right off the bat and tell you that I was inspired by Joanna Parker Designs. She's quite famous for this type of sculpture. I copied her greatly...but I did something that made me feel pride. This past September was the first time I'd ever seen her work. Stunning! Expensive too!

See Joanna Parker Designs.

It was so fun making their little hats and ruffled collars. With the drying times, this project took me weeks.

I'm sooooooooo pleased.

Wow! I've spent the last week wrapping up ALL my current crafts. Time for a breather and regroup for Christmas! Weeeeeee, I'm just having so much fun in Sunny Tucson.

This was the last installment of my Fall season crafts. I've gathered all 4 posts 

at "Handmade Halloween"

Thanks so much for the visit, leave me a note, I'll be sure to drop by your blog too.

Happy Halloween to all!


I'm sharing my post with:
Have a cup with Mrs Olson

The Thrifty Groove, Thrifty Things Friday
Common Grounds, Vintage Inspiration
Alderberry Hill, Make the Scene Monday
Elizabeth & Co, Be Inspired

Halloween Crows Poison Candy Boxes

Aren't these just the cutest! Crows are big this year....and they're only a buck each!

Halloween Dollar Store Craft

 

My boxes and straw are also from The Dollar Tree. 

I saw a similar  project from the cool folks at Spookville Stoodios Flicker page

Too easy! Paint, decoupage, glitter or glued prints onto the box. The birds have an inch and a half of wire coming out of their feet. Poke three small holes (in a row) on the top on the lid. Use the middle hole and a short length of wire to secure your straw and the two outer holes for the foot wires to poke through. 

Secure with tape.Bang! Quick and great looking. I created labels and

 distressed them and glued them on quite haphazardly.

I love Halloween! Thank you the visit, this was post number 3 in a Halloween set. 

See all 4 crafts at "Handmade Halloween"


The crows are sharing this post at:
Have a cup with Mrs Olson 
The Thrifty Groove, Thrifty Things Friday
Common Grounds, Vintage Inspirations

Vintage Halloween Cards Poster

Paper arts is my thing! I tried to do some fabric quilting, but gave it up to quilt on my computer instead. I found LOTS of great Halloween background while looking through fabric sites. All kinds of fabric prints, and I saved plenty! I created a whole file on fabric swatches to use as printed paper projects. As a card maker this is a great thing to file away.

16 x 20 is too big for a home printer, so I really did have to "quilt" this together. The inner background is from 6 print outs, cut, sized and glued. The outside border was multi printed and pieced together. I located vintage party decoration heads for the 4 corners. And I know you recognize vintage Halloween postcards.

 That's what got me going on this poster. I really wanted to use and show vintage cards. The poster could certainly be made without the use of a graphic file....but for me that's not where the fun is!

I hope you are having fun this Fall season! Thanks for dropping by,

 this is post number 2 in my Halloween series on 4 crafts. 

See them all at "Handmade Halloween"

My Paper Mache Pumpkin

Pumpkins are grown in southern Arizona, there's some really nice pumpkin patches too. This year we won't make it to one. I'll just get back from a Missouri wedding before Halloween. But this past September I decided to make a pumpkin to last for YEARS!

I went searching through yahoo images and came up with a few great ideas. I was thinking about those vintage german paper mache pumpkins with the silly faces. I saw lot's of folks making really cool pumpkins.
I got the general idea how to start and the trash bag part and the paper mache too,
but paper clay is new to me.
I found a lovely website on a sculpture artist who creates her own paper clay.
Her site is called "Ultimate Paper Clay" You can find a recipe here.
She does some beautiful sculptures pf animals. You'll enjoy the visit.

(D'oh! pictorial, but illustrated would be a better word)

I let the pumpkin dry for two weeks. Look often for developing mold, and kill it. A wipe with bleach works.

Spray painting is ok to stop at and enjoy the piece, but I painted yellow and orange highlights later that evening. I also painted green into the stem and brought in some green leaves left over from my topiary project. Some floral wire and I'm good to go. I didn't do the vintage style after all, but I like the pumpkin. Since I'll have it for years... I could dress it up differently each holiday season.

Thanks for the visit, this post is number 1 in my Halloween segment.
Please see all 4 crafts. at "Handmade Halloween".
Boo!

There's a Pumpkin in my bath!

Just finishing up in my bathroom. I took another Dollar Tree pumpkin and covered it in glitter and then wrapped it in tulle. I've combined my last two craft posts into one project :)

 Glitter & Tulle Pumpkin

I'm also having lots of fun with my graphics program today as well.  The pumpkin is siting in the back corner of my tub. I've taken two baths since placing it there...and we've had no fall ins.

Check out my "Make a Pumpkin" post and "Two toned glittered pumpkin" post to see how the two crafts have been combined into one.

Happy Fall Everyone!

sharing with...........

Share your cup Thursday
Share It One More Time

Two toned Glittered Pumpkin

I changed out the Summer flowers in my bath and put in Fall. I'm still pretending it's Fall.

Let's get messy with Glitter!

My counter decorations mostly come from The Dollar Tree. Everyone has been buying these great crows this year...they are soooo cool. And the best prices on Fall flowers have been there too this year. On my last visit I saw 6" pumpkins and a little 5 pack of very small tabletop gourds.

I love glitter! The little 6" pumpkins are actually awful looking and they have a pronounced seam through the middle. I tried to sand it off..and got bits and chunks and knocked out color. The little gourds are perfect. I thought glittering the pumpkin would look nice, and it did. But something wasn't right...ah ha! I need shading. After the orange glitter dried I painted new glue in the crevasses and sprinkled dark rust colored glitter. In the same fashion I glitter the top green too. I pulled out a trusty sharpie and tightly wrapped gold wire around it to create little metal spirals for it's leaves. They poke right into the pumpkin easily.

For the flower picks I stuck a skewer in the gourd and glittered them with browns, golds and clear glitters.

I like this set up, but I wish my cat, Bitty, would just stop spreading glitter everywhere.

Well here's a couple of my secrets. I'm off the decorate the bath now. Cheer's!

Sharing with...........

Share your cup Thursday

Make a Pumpkin!

I'm just back from Las Vegas and the Mining Expo Convention and couldn't wait to get back to crafting. 

Let's make some pumpkins!

I'd seen a real pumpkin wrapped in tulle somewhere. Since I'm having problems locating the right size pumpkins...I thought I'd just make 'em! Below is a quick photo essay.


Materials needed:
Leftover grocery bag
Old newspapers or "other" left overs for filling
Tape
Fabric, enough to pull around the shape
Pins
4 layers of Tulle, cut larger than the fabric
Pipecleaner
Wire Ribbon

Painted Pumpkins BOO!

Easy and fun! (Quick note, I'm testing out Mr Linky for 2 days. While you're here visit this post and please help out by leaving a linked post. All for fun...thank you: CLICK HERE:)

Black, White and Gold Pumpkins

Materials Needed:
Black, White and Gold Spray Paint ($$)
300 Pumpkins (Why not, the paint was costly)
Light Wire
Sharpie (for it’s tube shape)
Glitters
Glue
Craft Paint
Small Tip Brush

Version 2 (You could hand paint them :)
Pumpkins
Craft Paint

Wash and dry all of your pumpkins. Make sure they are really dry. Now we can create those cute little wire curlee cues. Take a loosely measured yard of wire and bend in half. I cut a tiny notch on a ridge of the stem to catch the loop end of the wire. This allowed me to wrap the wire tightly around the pumpkin stem about 3 or 4 times. Remember the wire is doubled up, so it looks like you wrapped it more. Separate the two pieces and take out the sharpie. Get comfortable, you might want to hold the pumpkin in your lap. Hold one wire at the base where it becomes free from the stem wrapping. Wrap the wire like a spring around the sharpie. Slide out the sharpie and do the same to the other wire. Stretch them a bit to get the look you like. They’ll be painted along with its pumpkin.


Set up a paint station outside. For me it was the ground. I used an old tree stand and ugly wide mouth vase to hold the pumpkins while spraying and drying. Start spraying the bottoms first, let dry well before giving them the flip. Black will cover nicely and white goes on great! But as for the gold pumpkins, you’ll need to base coat them first with white. Gold paint is too expensive to do several coats. You should find that you’ll only need one gold coat if you made a base coat. (more information, buttons and photos when you click)

Dancing Sammy the Flower Pick, The Crafty Pad

Greetings, I'm writing tonight from a beautiful southwestern hotel, The Lodge on the Desert, my husband and I are celebrating our anniversary. Last night was a little scary, a wind storm blew through Tucson. These are incredible! Luckily rain came with the night wind. Earlier in the day dust storms ran havoc on the interstate highways of Arizona. We did lose our phone line and I was in want of my computer all day!

So here I am at the hotel, catching up on my posts...like this one for The Crafty Pad Challenge, Paper Piecing. Our team is working with a digital stamp from The Crafty Pad Design Store called Sammy the Scarecrow. There's lot of cute stamps for winter time in there now...go take a peek:) There's prize too! A pack of 5 Grey Promarkers from Crafty Ribbons and Letraset.

My paper piecing this week is a craft that can be suitable for any season. I happen to be using Sammy, but any figure image will work. Locate some "picks", I used BBQ skewers. Print out two alike images of your size choice. Cut out the body of one and the limbs of the other image. Brads work great to connect the moveable limbs. And.......Boom! Quick craft for any occasion!

I hope you enjoyed this quickie. I once made these picks for a party my husband's MG car club was throwing. It was a theme party, Victorian England Christmas. I printed various famous Victorians and two were stuck into the twenty or so table poinsettia's on all of the tables. It was a lovely party too. We went as the Queen and Prince, I am Victoria!

Back to earth, thanks so much for this visit. Try the craft out. This is a good one to do with children too. Peace to All.

This card is also entered in these fine challenge blogs:
Cooking It Up With Katie, Anything But a Card (11/10)

Halloween Candy Bag

Hello, it's time for a new challenge with The Crafty Pad. This week we are using a Halloween stamp from The Crafty Pad Design Store. A great place to get digi's! And our challenge is one for the season..."Halloween". I hope you join us. I've taken another craft avenue other than cards again this week. A Halloween Candy Bag for my grand daughter, Emma. She's going treat or treating as the vampire in "Adventure Time". I have no idea idea what that is:)

This bag is digital and handmade. The purple frame is borrowed from the internet. The stamp in the center is from The Crafty Pad and it is computer colored with pop tape layering. The words and skulls and eyeballs come from a K & Company Halloween pack. I cut a black and green circle then corner punched the black for a creepy lace curve and did a pinking cut for the edge of the green circle. I cut both in half to create the top and bottom accents on the purple frame. My ribbon at the top of the bag looks like a spider. Cool. There is also a little bow and spider at the bottom. In this bright sunlight it's hard to see just how much stickle glitter has been used. Orange, yellow, black, diamond and red. I love glitter.

So fun to make. Take any bag and dress it up for a Halloween goodies bag. This is a great project to make for your little kids too. Take a second to visit Kids4Crafts.com. It's my other blog, it's been slow lately but it's starting to pick up. There's fun Holiday crafts for you and the kids over there. Enjoy.

Thanks for the visit, please come by anytime.

This craft is also entered into these fun challenges:
Allsorts, #126 Halloween (10/29)
Crafty Boots Challenges, Autumn or Halloween (10/30)
Papertake Weekly Challenge, Spooky Hues (10/25)
Crop Stop Challenge, Halloween (10/27)
Delightful Challenges, Halloween (10/26)

UPDATE: Goofy me! I just realized this treat bag won at Crop Stop! Cool, but dumb on my side. I use "Victoria Lavender" as one word and as my online moniker. On all my past wins I would check Feline Playful through their search box under my moniker, but I just realized some folks repeat my name only as "Victoria". So I just found that I've won a couple challenges. It's terribly rude to win and never contact. I'm so sorry to anyone I've been impolite to.

Vintage Style Halloween Door Hanger/Giant Tag

Hi, I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of Fall! I really wanted to be in the Pals Paper Arts challenge this week. I haven't played with them for a few weeks and Halloween is my favorite!

This one is the close-up for Mr Linky

I was having fun photographing outdoors today.

This card came together quickly (for a change). My graphic was printed last year, I made the "vintage" garland (beneath the ribbon) last year too! I even had leftover spiders from past decorations. I wanted to make something for myself this time. So I'll be using it on my front door. My spider ribbon/bow was fun to make. I have a paper spider, sentiment and background papers from Recollections. The ribbon is from the crazy fabric store-S.A.S. and my punches were Martha Stewart and Fiskers and Marvy. My messy black ink is a petal from Colorbox. Did you check out my insane stitches? They're fake but still kinda scary. I wish you all cool nights and crispy leaves!

My card is also entered in these fabulous challenges:
CES Challenge Blog, Make it Magical or Spooky
The Pink Elephant, vintage
Try it on Tuesday, Dig out the old
Party Time Tuesdays, Ribbon and Fibers Oh My!

Red Halloween

Howdy! I'm back to making cards again. I kinda took a break during the creation of Looking4Challenges. I saw some colors I haven't tried before in the challenge for The Play Date Cafe, Splash of Red with black and white neutrals. And at The Case Study we have been introduced to Guest Designer, Julie Lacey, and her clean style. Oh, clean is so hard for me!

My Red Halloween Card

I've done a very old technique with the Scarecrow, Wet Embossing. I first did one of these 8 years ago while scrapbooking. I've taken a brass stencil and Artist Medium (clear thick gel) and created a dimensional image. You squeegee the paste over the design openings of a taped down stencil. Carefully peel away and toss over the glitter. Shake well and enjoy the detail!

Materials:
Recollections Black Cardstock
Gel Medium (Mod Podge Paste works too)
Brass Stencil
Stampendous, Embossing Glitter "Red Dragon" (used as reg. Glitter/no gun)
Fox River, Ivory Cardstock
Sewing Machine
Clear Tape
SAS Red Ribbon
Black ink for distressing
Marvy Punches
A Vicki Stamp
White Chalk
Cuttlebug, Ribbons Emboss Card

I really appreciate your visit and comments, and if you have a moment check out Looking4Challenges....see if it works for you. Happy Day!

This card is also entered in these fine
challenges that you can locate at "Looking 4 Challenges".

Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog, Embossing
Delightful Challenges, Halloween
Aly's Sunday Challenge: Halloween
The Crafty Pad, Distressing and Tearing

Halloween Tag

Hi, I just found a little challenge dealing with tags. I really should make more of them, they're fun. "Try it on Tuesday" is the latest challenge blog I've found. The challenge is Tags/Trees. I'm starting to long for fall and doing a vintage Halloween tag is giving me the feeling of leaves and fall. (I LOVE FALL!, we don't have a real fall in the extreme southwest)

I used a public use image found while googling. Also: DCWV Citrus Orange Cardstock, Stickles, pastels, colored pencils, #2 pencil, fine point marker, a ribbon I beat up with black ink, embroidery thread, and the vintage style garland trim I made. I'm going to finish the set I've started, I hope you all have a lovely august day! Cheers!

Halloween Cards

I am having so much fun with my cricut cutter. The images are public use and from a vintage Halloween website. The lace cut circles were created on Corel and transformed into a cutter file. I saw some pretty lace like circle files for sale, and for a moment I thought "Mmmm I might just buy those." Then my inner crafter kicked in and created the art file myself. It does help having been a graphic artist during my working days. A little inking for an aged effect and I have something cute. The little pumpkin is from kids4crafts.blogspot. Check out my profile to find our pages for children crafts.

Black, White and Gold Pumpkins

Black, White and Gold Pumpkins

Materials Needed:
Black, White and Gold Spray Paint ($$)
300 Pumpkins (Why not, the paint was costly)
Light Wire
Sharpie (for it’s tube shape)
Glitters
Glue
Craft Paint
Small Tip Brush

Version 2 (You could hand paint them :)
Pumpkins
Craft Paint

Wash and dry all of your pumpkins. Make sure they are really dry. Now we can create those cute little wire curlee cues. Take a loosely measured yard of wire and bend in half. I cut a tiny notch on a ridge of the stem to catch the loop end of the wire. This allowed me to wrap the wire tightly around the pumpkin stem about 3 or 4 times. Remember the wire is doubled up, so it looks like you wrapped it more. Separate the two pieces and take out the sharpie. Get comfortable, you might want to hold the pumpkin in your lap. Hold one wire at the base where it becomes free from the stem wrapping. Wrap the wire like a spring around the sharpie. Slide out the sharpie and do the same to the other wire. Stretch them a bit to get the look you like. They’ll be painted along with its pumpkin.


Set up a paint station outside. For me it was the ground. I used an old tree stand and ugly wide mouth vase to hold the pumpkins while spraying and drying. Start spraying the bottoms first, let dry well before giving them the flip. Black will cover nicely and white goes on great! But as for the gold pumpkins, you’ll need to base coat them first with white. Gold paint is too expensive to do several coats. You should find that you’ll only need one gold coat if you made a base coat.



Spray paints are quite an investment for just hobbying around. But using them smartly will enable you to work with many more projects down the road. While your spending - consider a clear coat spray as well. These four paints will complement your craft collection immensely.





After the pumpkins dry...they are simply beautiful! You could stop working on them now and decorate your porch or you may choose to glitter some too. So far this craft could be done with supervised school-aged kids, but now we come to the part that the littlest ones can enjoy too. Glittering! This cute and bright crazy color glitter pumpkin can be done by anyone. Or you could write and draw. I found this to be easier when I first painted my design in craft paint. Choose craft paint color that will work as a backing color to the glitter (this will help the glitter look brighter). And now you’ve got some beautiful pumpkins to display and delight your neighborhood.

 This one is "version 2" my then three year old grandson, Jake, did this in the back yard.

Thanks for the visit!






c