Halloween Tombstone Banner

 I am super excited to share something fun with you today!

I LOVE Halloween and I love that I got to play with some cool Oriental Trading* items this month.

I picked a lot of Halloween items and made this awesome banner for the wall in my living room:

 

I hung everything right above my photos, its a little crooked (and so are my picture frames) but I figure that just adds to the spooky Halloween feel. 

Here's the details on how I made it:

I started with these fun wooden tombstones and inked the edges and a bit on top in black.

Then I laid them on the back of my Halloween paper and traced around them. Cut the paper out, squish it in your hand (don't worry if it tears a bit), flatten it out by hand then ink over the creases to create the weathered/cracked look.

Slather your tombstone with glue, I used Mod-Podge, and put the paper on.
You can do all of them while you're waiting for them to dry, it doesn't take long if you make it a thin layer of glue.

Then you can do a bit of sanding around the edges and over the front of the tombstone. If you take off more than you want just blacken it up with your ink again. Then give it another coat of Mod-podge to seal it up.

Now for the details.
I cut out some chalk paper to add to the front of my tombstones to write on. Then added the decorations. The skull and crossbones were punched from the Halloween paper and I cut the bats, a jack o' lantern and the big spider out of one of the papers.

Here you can see the bats that I attached to thin craft wire before taping to the back of the tombstone and the Jack O' Lantern I cut out. 

I also used one of these awesome black potion bottles to add to the spooky effect.

This is a side view so you can see the 3-D effect better.

 

On 3 of my tombstones I used these awesome Eyeball charms and these fun Halloween snap beads. 

My favorite tombstone? Probably the most simple looking, but it did take a bit more work to get the look I wanted:

I cut this big guy out of the paper using a craft knife. I used 3D foam to pop him off the tombstone and then bent his legs at the sections and glued the tips down for a 3D look.
Here's a closeup:

And here they all are. If you decide to set them up on a mantle they come with these easy to use bases:

Putting it all together on my wall, I used wide burlap as my base, added some cool spider webs and then these big spiders. They were the perfect touch for this piece. I finished it up with a creepy message using the Chalk Marker.

These were SO much fun to make!
They are awesome and spooky. Everyone in my family commented on them when they came home. lol You know it's good when the teens like it!
Check out Oriental Trading* for all your supplies.

Thanks for stopping by,

:)Ange

*Oriental Trading sent me products to review, but all opinions are my own

Quick decoration for Easter w/ Love My Tapes

Hello, I have a cute, fun & easy Easter project for you today.
 I have these fun little wooden magnets my husband cut out for me a few years ago when he made me a wire decoration for my living room, to hang my newly made layouts from. The magnets go over the screws he used to attach the decoration to the wall.

I'm constantly changing the layouts I hang from the decoration, so it's really fun to have these little magnets to change to go along with the current holiday. I put a base coat on them, but then wasn't sure what else to do, because, well..., its fun to change them each year, right?

Enter Love My Tapes!

Washi tapes were the perfect solution. Each holiday I can pull the magnets out, take the tape off from the year before and put some fun new tape on!

Here I've picked 4 different polka-dot colors from the store; yellow dots, purple dots, blue dots, & green dots. Then I layered them closely over each of my eggs.

Next you trim the edges with your scissors as close as you can then push the tape down along the edges.

Finish your eggs with a bit of ink or pen work. 

Here is what they look like hanging on my wall:

(click photo for a larger view)

Easy, fun, beautiful and different every year!

Thanks for stopping by,

:)Ange