DIY: Halloween Craftin'

Hey, lookie! I created a club! Here are the rules:

1st Rule: You do not talk about the Naughty Kitty Club.
2nd Rule: You DO NOT talk about the Naughty Kitty Club. 

Oh, crap, wait. My bad. That's Fight Club rules. Carry on. Let's talk away about this ultra-photo heavy blog post and this imaginary club I created cuz that's what you do when you're not cool enough to be invited to join a bona-fide club (tho I guess using cheesy terms like "bona-fide" will prolly get you ruled outta just about any club). 

I actually have no idea just how this here needle felted number came to be. It most def wasn't planned. I mean, I'm currently buried under half finished sewing, painting, crafting, art teacherin' projects. So piling one more on top of that Mountain of Mess seemed like such a great idea. You know. I like to use crafting as a means of avoiding unfinished crafting. I'm sure it's how Martha Stewart lives her life. 

Since I'm currently in full-blown Halloweenie mode, I've got a big fat pinterest board bursting with vintage fall images. And images of black cats keep popping up and I'm loving them! Our first cat, Mama, was a sweet black cat and I'm always reminded of her when I see them. 

So, on a whim, in-between 23 other projects, I pulled this rarely worn lace jacket thing from Forever21 outta my closet and set to sketching out my plan. 

I started with this vintage Halloween kitty as my inspo and went from there...

You might notice I later dropped the bow tie as I thought it was two similar to this OTHER needle felted cat ensemble (yes, I've now created two needle felted cat wears. And, yes, I'm completely aware that this makes me a Crazy Cat Lady. Whateves.) After this was drawn, I cut it out and pinned it to the back of my jacket.

Using chalk, I sketched out the circle to go around the cat and started needle felting that part in with a combo of yellow and orange wool roving. Oh! If you'd like to learn more about needle felting supplies, how it's done, the whole thang, go here and check out some crappy videos I made! 

I like using the wool yarn as an outline because it gives me some super hard edges and also allows me to fill in my spaces Paint-by-Numbers style. 

Omg, everytime I see this photo, I think of Donald Trump. Tell me I'm not alone!

The parts of the face came together really fast. I just started outlining and filling it in. 

I tried to limit my color palette so that it had a vintage look to it. Instead of using black for the cat, I have this great roving that is a blend of purples, browns and blue that I thought worked well. 

The eyes proved to be a pinch challenging in that I had to really thing about what colors to use. If I had used black to outline the eyes, they would have disappeared into the background color. So outlining 'em in that deep orange was my solution. 

And, c'mon, I needed a slogan to go with the kitty, right? I was thinking of those jackets the Pink Ladies wore in Grease or the hot pink satin roller skating jacket I had as a kid. I toyed around with a couple of names and this is the one that I liked best.

I managed to get this done in the time it took me to watch Pulp Fiction and Ghostbusters. I'm on a rando retro movie watching bender. Did I mention it's fall break and I have a week off? Yeah, don't hate. 

During a coffee-refueling break, I got sidetracked and made a new table runner! I'm really loving all things mid-century mod right now (like, aren't we all?) and I found this fabric in my stash from Ikea. All it needed was a lil hemming and boom! New runner. I love how well it goes with that Williamsburg marbled platter (a thrifted score, if you can believe!) and the antler and feathers that el hubbo has collected on his hiking trips. 

Still loving the Halloween display. The only good part about taking it down at the end of the month is that it will be replaced by Christmas goodness, yay!

So this is what our table pretty much looked like over those first coupla days of fall break. Peaky Blinders on one laptop, pinterest on the other. Oh, and a Big Fat Frothy Coffee. That's a must. 

A buddy invited me over for a craft night. In preparation, I dug out a coupla old canvases and painted 'em white and then gave them orange stripes. In the end, one became the cat painting and the other as the background for my craft. 

At my buddy's house, we used this air dry clay stuff (I can't recall the name but it wasn't like Model Magic) and I shaped the parts to this Pumpkin Dude.

Once dry, I painted him in that went over him with some watered down brown acrylic paint. That was brushed quickly off to leave an antiqued-ish look behind.

Then I shoddily put him together with some wire and glued him to the canvas. The prob? He blended into the canvas too much, says me.

 So I lightened the orange lines with some watery acrylic and added the vertical stripes. Done! AND I just realized both he and the cat are winking. What the what? Am I on some sort of winking kick? Are they both missing an eye? Do they have an eye-winking twitch? 

All I know is that guy ain't winkin' fer sheeeeeet. Pumpkin! Get off my a$$!

Oh and then there was this painting. So, the back story on that crazy texture is that I painted that in oils a million years ago. The colors I used were horrid but the texture was cool. So I painted over that in watery creme, added the stripes and started busting out this witch. I have NO IDEA how to finish this beast but I'll keep you posted. 

 The texture has me really excited tho. 

 UGH. Speaking of beasts, this bad boy has been on my easel for a while now. I thought it would be so easy to bust out. Turns out it's taking foreverness. I'm determined to finish before the 31st, y'all. It's gonna happen. 

Unless I get distracted and make another jacket, that is. Oui! I think instead of the Naughty Kitty Club, I should change the name to Messy ProCATinator's Club. Tho it just don't have the same ring to it, does it?