31 Halloween Projects-1 Googly Eye Photo Frame

Ok, I am getting ready to get a ton of projects finished up and am really excited to see what you think of them!  I am officially starting off the 31 Halloween Projects posts with number one, a googly eye photo frame.

I, of course, found the initial inspiration on Pinterest.  Here are a couple of photos I have found floating around.

^ This is the one I liked best and is pretty close to what I ended up with.  The original link is here.

^ Here is another one I found.  This looks like it is just a photo that was taken and pinned so I am not sure where it came from.

Below is my version.
 I found a wooden frame and some googly eyes at Michael's. I also had on hand green paint, paintbrushes, multi-purpose glue, ribbon and a cut out.

I started by painting the frame all over on the front and back.  This is a terrible photo of the color by the way; it is a very bright, almost neon, green.

I then opened my bags of googly eyes and started to spread them around on my frame.  I bought several different packages because I wanted different kinds of eyes on my frame so I opened all of the packages and poured them in a large bowl so I could easily pick out the ones I wanted.  I started with the largest eyes I had so that I could space them out the way I wanted.

Optional:  Put the large googly eyes on your face and make creepy faces with your husband.

Keep adding eyes and fill in the spaces as you go.  I tried to vary mine as much as possible so it would be random.

The sizes of eyes you use and the space you have to fill will help determine where to put everything.  Just keep filling it up.

I took some close up photos so you could see all the different eyes I found.  I got a package with lots of different sizes so I had very large (bigger than my eyes) and very very small (the top of a stick pin).  One package had different colored backgrounds, I only really loved the green ones from that package because they matched my background perfectly so I didn't use a lot of them.  Another package had eyelids and eyelashes painted on the front of them.  There was even a package that had different colored irises (the inside of the eye).

This is the jar of what I have leftover, you can see more of the colors that were included that I didn't use.

Keep adding more and start paying attention to the colors as you add them so you don't have too many of the same ones together.

Once it was all finished I was so excited!  I love the way it turned out and a few finishing touches was all it needed.  I touched up any areas that needed more paint and found some ribbon and a Halloween scrapbook punch out that I had.

The ribbon is self adhesive so I just cut it to length and wrapped it around.  I used vellum dots to attach the label so it would stay nicely.  Tip: I made sure to paint the back nicely and wrap the ribbon all the way around the back since mine is on a stand and you will be able to see the back of it.  I bought the frame in the broken/discount section because it didn't have the stand on the back so I bought a cheap plate display stand at the dollar store and used that.

I spent a total of $8 on my frame and I just love it.  You could save money by getting a frame at the dollar store or using one package of eyes instead of the 5 that I bought (I had a TON leftover).  Hanging the frame on the wall or getting one that isn't broken will also save you from the display cost.

Here is the finished product with my fave photo from last year in it.  This is a photo of all the costume contest winners and I just love how goofy they all are.

Leave me comments with your questions.  Is there anything I can do to make the instructions easier or clearer for you?  Let me know.

~Liz

Paper Bats

I originally saw a great photo of felt bats pasted on to an exterior door on countryliving.com (via pinterest.com) and wanted to do it.  I decided that I had so much scrapbook paper however, that mine would be paper.  This also meant they had to move inside.  Then I found this, she was also inspired by Country Living but wanted to use paper.  Her bats look great flying through the dining room and I have a great dining room for it too so I started cutting bats.  You can use the template from her web site, she links to the Country Living Template, and print it out then re-size it on your scanner so you have a couple different sizes. 

I have tons of scrapbook paper so I just dug out some Halloween colors, patterns I thought would look like bats and things I liked.

I folded the paper in half with the back showing so I could trace my multiple templates.  

 I found it was easiest to draw several on the page and then cut them all out.

Once cut out, you can unfold them and you have easy bats.  You can do this freehand if you would prefer to give them more character.  Use the scraps you have for smaller templates and/or freehand small bats.  (I have to say that my freehand bats were pretty hilarious to everyone else while we were hanging them up)

Do this as many times as you want, unfold and admire your bats.  We used lots of graphic patterns instead of just black.  We also used shades of brown, maroon, grey, green and orange.

We let them swarm towards a vent in the dining room so they flap in the 'wind' a little.

We ended up with tons of them so they flew all around the room.

If you look at the top of the doorway here, you can see that my clever little brother put a couple hanging upside down like they hadn't flown off yet.

Some stragglers flew around the room and perched on the light switch....

the fan cord....

even on Justine's face!  lol

I love the way this project turned out.  =)

liz

Simple Candle Covers

Here is a very quick and easy project that costs almost nothing and gives your house a little Halloween flair.

• Take any glass candles or candle holders and measure the height of the label.
• Pick some paper you want to cover them with.  I chose several from a package of scrapbook paper from the Lime Twist line by The Paper Studio.  I scrapbook and had this on hand.  You can use magazines with cool print or pictures, plain colored paper, any scrapbook or printed paper, wrapping paper.  Old books look cool too.
• Cut the papers a little more than the size of the label so you have several long strips to wrap around the candles.
• Use tape, glue or other adhesives to affix the ends of the paper to the glass.  You can print or write labels with macabre names if you want to.  I liked mine without the labels because I think they looked nicer because my hand writing is awful.  Usually the names are on the bottom of the jars so you know what you have.
• Be sure you do not put the paper directly on candles you plan to burn, the paper will burn and cause a huge fire.  If you plan to use the candles as decoration only you can obviously cover them to match.  I used 4 different papers for 7 different candles so that I had a variety but you could cover them all the same so they match.

liz