Boo! Halloween candlesticks

I have a cute Halloween tutorial for you. Last night I made these cute things. I'm not quite sure what to call them. I wanted to call them "BOO Apothecary jars" but they don't have tops to the and I added candles to them. So I guess we are going to go with "BOO! Halloween candlesticks".

Now, in my opinion, I think if you were to see these in the store then you would easily pay $20 for them. It doesn't seem like you can many decorative glass holiday products for less then that. But you CAN make these for $6, and I'm going to show you how.

1.  I picked up three glass candlestick holders at the dollar store. 

2.  I painted them black with some good ole craft paint.

3.  Once they were dry I gave them all an even coat on "Deco Art- Triple Thick" glaze.

4. While that was drying I printed out some letters to use as stencils for my jars/vases. Then I cut them out.

5.  Next I grabbed my three dollar store vases. I used my painters tape (you can do this with whatever tape you want. or you can do it a completely different way) to make an even line all the way across the vases so that I wouldn't have wonky letters.I traced my stencils on with washable maker (thank you kids art supplies) and then filled them in first with white. then I built on that with black and grey.

These are the paints that I have been using.

6/7.  Once I attached the vases to the candlesticks with E6000 epoxy, I used this Raffia to make bows around the sticks.

When everything was dry and secure, I filled them with a cheap bag of  "Jolly Time Pop Corn" (purchase by the bag) and then topped them off with a tea light in each one.

I really like the way that they turned out. I was excited to make them and I think it was a really fun project.

You can fill them them with whatever you want. Ideas, you ask? Candy Corn, Spanish Moss (minus the candles), Halloween spider webs and little plastic spiders, rubber snakes, the list goes on and on. Be creative!

At first I really painted the letters to be "Perfect" but, you really need vinyl letter for that look. The paint was a little tricky because it leaves little bumps in the paint as you add layers. Eventually I threw in the towel on perfection and just started mixing black and white and slopping it on. At the end I put them all side by side and decided that, I love it! Give it a try.... you cant beat a $6 dollar craft project. There is no reason not to try this, so get to it y'all!

Pumpkin Bouquet

I know, I've been slacking on getting my posts up. I'm leaving for several weeks to go back home and visit with my family. I only go once a year so its usually a long trip. Although I am super excited for this upcoming trip, I also have lots to do around the house before I leave. If you know me that means I need to decorate the house for the fall season. But the icing on the cake is that I am also decorating for Halloween before I leave because I wont be getting back until 2 weeks into October. And honestly, who wants to decorate the entire house for two weeks. Nope, not me. So I'm going to do it now so that when I get home I don't have to do anything but enjoy it.

Halloween is my husbands FAVORITE holiday! We do it up pretty big around our house. And we don't do the cutsie decorations either. There are a few of them but, for the most part it's creepy hanging ghouls and goblins, an armful of huge house climbing spiders, several skeleton pumpkin kings dressed in tattered gauze complete with chains hanging from their wrists. A graveyard in the front of the house, and a bunch of inflatable horse driven hearses and ghosts along with a 5 ft tall witch that stands gaurd at the front door and stirs her cauldron with her glowing eyes. I often tell my husband "The house is scary enough for kids to even think about coming to the door, so you shouldn't scare them further by being the scariest thing you can imagine!" but does he listen..... NOPE! One year he was dressed in an orange escaped convict jumpsuit and wore a Jason mask. He would walk out and not say a word to the kids, just stare at them in silence until their little knees wobbled in fear. Last year our house was SUPER CREEPY and he had prosthetic's made for his face so that he could be a zombie. It literally looked like flesh was falling off of his face. I tried to tell him to go easy on the ones that were obviously still too young for the fright of all hallows eve. But he still terrified the small tots, bless their little hearts. He thinks Halloween is to terrify and shock. That is his favorite part!

Anyway.... I'm trying my best to get the decorating done. I have a few projects that I'm still working on. This one isn't Halloween exactly but more of an autumn in general project. The best part is that it cost me a whopping $4 to complete.

I went to the Dollar Store and picked up this cute little pumpkin. It has a line around the middle of it, but I don't really care. They all had it but, what do you want for $1?  I took my exacto knife and cut around the top just like I would if I were carving a real pumpkin.

I expected this thing to be solid foam. I thought "I'm going to have to dig out the foam in order to do what I want with this little guy!" To my surprise it was hollow inside.

I flipped the top upside down and shoved it into the bottom of the pumpkin.

Then I grabbed some wire cutters from the hubbies shop and cut the stems of my dollar store flowers to the height that I needed them to be. I used the topper of the pumpkin that was now in the bottom of the hollow pumpkin as florist foam and just stuck the stems straight in there to keep them in place.

TA DAAA!!! Cute little pumpkin bouquet for my kitchen counter. I love it!! I may end up painting the pumpkin if in a couple days if it just feels too orange. But I don't know..... what do you think?
What if it was painted to look like grey stone or something. I don't know. Just an idea.

If I do paint it I will post a picture of the finished product. Until next time my lovely's!