American Crafter Round 1-Sound Activated Halloween Pillow

Today I am SO excited to be posting my Round 1 project for the American Crafter competition, hosted by Amy at Naptime Crafters. This rounds theme is Halloween!

If you are popping over from Amy's blog to check out the tutorial, HELLO and welcome to Love Sweet Love! If you're here from anywhere else I'm so happy you've come on over to check out my project and if you like what you see, I would so love it if you could make a quick stop HERE and put a vote in for me and my pillow! :) The best part about this competition is that you can vote for THREE (3!) different projects so head on over and vote for your 3 favorites! You don't have to have a blog, be a blogger, or even like blogging ;) to vote-everyone's opinion matters!! And I promise...the other 14 halloween projects are Drop. Dead. Amazing. These girls do NOT mess around. Seriously you HAVE to go check them out!!!

My entry:
Sound Activated Halloween Pillow

You can see the quick and simple version of my project at Naptime Crafters, but if you're looking for a detailed how-to...here ya go!

1. I Cut the burlap to the size I wanted the pillow to be (including a few extra inches for seam allowance)
2. I ironed mine flat so there wouldn't be weird creases in the pillow since my burlap had been sitting folded up in a closet for awhile.
3. I sketched a quick design on paper and then used pins to outline where I wanted everything to go so I could keep track as I went about adding the different elements to the pillow.
4. I printed out a stencil on my cricut and then used a black permanent marker to print it onto the pillow.
5. Ta Da! :)

1. I purchased half a yard of black lace and grosgrain ribbon from Hobby Lobby (still have a little less than half leftover)
2. First sewed on the black lace and then sewed the ribbon directly up the middle of the lace.
3. I intentionally left a couple inches of the lace/ribbon strip on either side of the burlap so that it could be sewed into the top seam of the pillow, leaving a nice clean line.

1&2.I then stuffed the pillow with polyfiber that had been given to me by my BF (but it's super cheap at JoAnns-especially if you use a coupon!)
3. With the leftover lace, I made a flower by cutting a small circle of felt and then hot gluing the lace to it, starting at the outer edge and circling around and around toward the center until...
4...it was a full circle! I then added a sparkly, silver brad to the middle.

I love that the flower comes out at you to add a little dimension to the pillow and the lace gives it a different texture!

BUUUUTTTT what good would a 'Happy Haunting' pillow be if it wasn't slightly...haunted?! That's when I had this idea...

1.I took a too-spooky-for-my-taste grim reaper decoration
2. Removed the sound activated device (that when activated by sound, responds by making eeeerie noises and glowing RED!!!)
3. Inserted it into the pillow
4. Cut a small square of posterboard to insert the small LED's into-and used electrical tape to hold them in place on the back of the poster-so that they wouldn't shift around and get lost or smothered by the polyfiber inside the pillow.
5. LASTLY, I cut a small hole around the on/off switch so I can choose which neighbors I'd like to scare up until Halloween :)

Happy Haunting!

Thanks so much for popping over for a looksy today! Now go cast your vote HERE -I'm contestant#10 (pretty pretty pleeeease, it would mean SO much to me!) and I'll see ya back here Monday with more October MaDnESs! Have a Sweetly Lovely day my lovelies!

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Pumpkin Pedestal's

HELLO beautiful ladies and gents! (gotta throw that out there in case there's at least one of them checking out LSL...like my hubby :) ) Remember those cute pedestal's my mod podge pumpkins were sitting on in yesterday's post? Welp they started out as simple, .50 wood pieces from Hobby Lobby I found while browsing the wood section. P.S. I think browsing is possibly my most favorite thing to do EVER. Ahhhh...so relaxing and inspirational, right?!


After a quick coat of black acrylic paint (black metallic sequins is the exact color)...


....and a thin layer of mod podge...


...these babies were ready for some fabric (or scrapbook paper if that's how you roll).


To hide those yucky, frayed edges I used some sparkly green ric rac (from Walmart) and hot glued it around the border of my fabric.


Eeeek! So cute! I {heart} me some ric rac!


You then glue them (using E6000) to the top of a candlestick (mine were .50 at a thrift store that I spray painted black).


And display those SpUnKyyyy pumpkins on top!!!


Nothin' to it! Thanks bunches my sweet friends for popping over to check out what's going on here! Tomorrow I'll be back with my Halloween project for the first round of the American Crafter competition!!! See ya then~

Have a Sweetly Lovely day today my lovelies!!

Mod Podge Pumpkins

Good morning crafters!! Today I have another fun and messy-as promised :) -Halloween craft for you! Mod Podge Pumpkins! Aren't they cute?!

(did you miss the previous Halloween crafts posted? Check them all out here!)

I originally saw this idea from The 36th Avenue, but she did fall pumpkins-which I fully intend to do :) -and I wanted some for Halloween, so using her tutorial I got to work!


Supplies:

• $ store pumpkins
• Halloween/Fall/Leftover fabric
• black acrylic paint
• mod podge
  

First paint the stems black...unless you prefer that weird orangy green look. Cut several strips of fabric; I cut about 16 1" x 8" strips per pumpkin. It will lay better at the top if you cut one end of the strips in an arrow shape.


Apply a layer of mod podge under and over each strip of fabric as you lay it onto the pumpkin. TIP: Pull the fabric downward tightly (not like Hercules strength tightly, we're not trying to tear it...just stretch it) as you place it on the pumpkin starting at the stem and moving towards the underneath side. Stretching the fabric a little as you pull will keep it from bubbling up.


Continuing adding strips around the entire pumpkin by overlapping each piece of fabric enough that no orange is showing through.


And then make as many as you want!!


I like the finished look, but felt it needed a little somethin' somethin'. Not anything too heavy since I used patterned fabric. Tulle tied around into a bow was the perfect solution for me!


See how the fabric cut into arrows on the top looks when the pumpkins complete? It gives you nice, clean lines.



Did you notice the little pedestal underneath the pumpkins?! That easy craft will be up for you tomorrow! :)


This is another great project to do with a little bit older kids. My 4 year old loved painting the mod-podge onto the pumpkin and sticking the fabric to it!



Thanks for coming over today, you're the best!! Can't wait to see ya back here tomorrow and as always...have a sweetly lovely day my lovelies!!!

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EXCITING NEWS and Ghost footprints!

Guess what?! Guess what?! Guess what?!?!!? Okay, let me just tell you because I am BURSTING with excitement!!!! (how many !!! are socially acceptable in a blog post because mine would be like as many are acceptable mmmmkay!) You may or may not have noticed a little button over on my sidebar that says I'm a contestant for American Crafter hosted by Amy from Naptime Crafters!!! What?! For reals. I'm pretty shocked excited about it myself!

Amy just posted the 15 contestant on her blog yesterday and the other 14 bloggers are FANTASTIC! Be sure to go check them out! The competition will be TOUGH but I'm looking forward to the challenge! The voting for the first round will be held at Naptime Crafters this Fri and winners move on to the next round based on number of votes so I'll need YOU to help me out!!! Pretty pretty please! :) Besides, you are NOT going to want to miss 15 awesomely unique halloween projects right?! Don't worry I'll be back to remind you! :)

Now onto some more pretty exciting stuff...a new Halloween project to add to our October MaDnESs! (missed the previous posts in this series? check them out here!)

It is SO fun to decorate for holidays now that my kids are old enough to enjoy and want to be apart of the decorating! When I saw this fun idea on pinterest (and THIS is the blog where the idea came from), I knew my kids would be really excited to help with the project!!




Here's some easy instructions in case you want to do something similar for your little ghosts and goblins! :)


1. Start with a blank canvas (I got mine from JoAnns when they were on sale 50% off so it cost me $3.50) and paint it black. I used regular acrylic paint.
2. When the paint has completely dried (I waited overnight) paint the bottom of those ticklish little feet white and have them press their foot onto the canvas! Make sure to push down gently on each little piggy so all the paint transfers! Then I used my pinky finger, while the paint was still wet, to remove the white paint to make the eyes.
3. Next I just used a white paint pen and freehanded the words onto the canvas.
4. Lastly I gave my baby girl ghost a little bow and cut a small top-hat out for the gent.

Easy as that!


This is, by FAR, the kids favorite Halloween project yet! We even had a few neighbor kids run over when we were outside painting our feet and they were pretty jealous! :)




Are you enjoying getting ready for Halloween?! Thank you so much for popping in today, I LOVE having you here!! Oh what was that? You want to know what that pumpkin in the pictures is all about? Come back tomorrow and I'll have an easy and MESSY (my favorite) pumpkin project for you!! Have a Sweetly Lovely day my lovelies!

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Skeleton Vase

Good morning GOOD morning my friends!! Okay, so I'm super duper di-duper ExCiTEd to share my first official (not counting my Boo Wreath cause that was just to get ya' in the mood ;) ) October MaDnESs craft with you today! I kinda came up with this idea on a whim after I pulled everything black, white, orange and I-know-I-can-do-something-with-this-item into my living room. (If you've followed this blog for long at all you know that I am ALL about the quick, easy, inexpensive diy crafts so I always start by shopping my house!!)

My little boy LOVES skeletons (not like in a weird creepy death way, but in like the fun halloween way:) ) so when I saw some skeleton garland at the dollar store I grabbed it up and new I'd find someway to incorporate it into our fun decor! This Skeleton Vase adds the perfect touch to my Halloween mantle!


Want to make something similar??? Here's how we did it!


Supplies:

• Dollar store candlestick (originally bright blue with orange cats-yikes! It quickly got a coat of sparkly black spray paint!!)
• Halloween or coordinating ribbon to wrap around the candlestick (I think mine was from Walmart and I used it for several different projects)
• Some type of vase
• Black rocks, pebbles, marbles, etc (remember you could always use spray paint to color plain rocks you find outside!)
• Tall white candle (TIP: if you only have 2 small candles, stack them together and tie a ribbon around where they meet to hide the line like I did!)
• Skeletons from $store skeleton garland (they just untie right off the garland)
  

Directions:


1. Slide the candle into the vase and pour half of your rocks around the candle.
2. Place skeletons around candle, pour second half of rocks into the vase to help hold the skeletons in place.
3. Place vase on-top of candlestick (If you want this to be permanent I would use some E6000 to glue the vase to the candlestick)
4. Display!



See what I'd tell ya?! So easy and you probably already have most of the supplies at home! There are SO many different ways you could do something similar to this and it could be so cute! What about you...do skeletons freak you out or can you decorate with them?!

Thank you, thank you for being apart of LSL's October MaDnESs event! Check back tomorrow for a FUN kids ghost craft-that you'll BOTH love making, PROMISE!

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