Simple Embroidery for Day of the Dead

Last Friday, I hosted a Halloween craft night and it was a whole lot of fun. We created super simple embroidery and needle felted decorations. My theme for mine was Day of the Dead but, since I was hosting a bunch of art teachers, I decided to just share the basics and leave the options and creativity up to them. Here's what they came up with: 

 So fun, right?! After sharing these images on my Instagram, I got a lot of questions about embroidery and needle felting basics. This project is all about the basics so I thought I'd create a little easy-peasy tutorial for you and the crafty folks in your life. I do believe children as young as 7 years old could handle this craft with you by their side. Here you go:

If you are not familiar with Day of the Dead and would like to read more, you might want to start here. 

 Supplies needed:

* Embroidery hoop (ours were about 6" wide)
* Fabric (scraps work great for the background!)
* Embroidery floss
* Embroidery or chenille needle
* Craft store felt in a variety of colors

Optional:
* Wool Roving
* Needle felting tool
* Needle felting cushion

 Instead of needle felting, you could always just glue on flowers, jewels or Halloween decor! The fun part on craft night was having a ton of supplies on hand for everyone and just seeing what all they could dream up!

 I like to keep my Calaveras (skulls) in the hoops and then hang them that way. I have a Halloween Tree (yes, I'm that person) and they look so cute on there.

I hope that tutorial helps. Have a wonderful time creating!

If you like this, you might want to grab MY BOOK, right here!

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DIY: My Favorite Fall Crafts!

When you've been around the blogging block as many times as I have (ahem), you start to accumulate a whole lotta posts. Add that to the fact that I'm a big time lover of all things fall and you've got yourself an online encyclopedia of autumn'ness. So I thought I'd put all of my fave ones into a pot, mix it all up and share it in a nice fall-y stew for y'all. Pumpkin spice flavored, of course. 

One thing el hubbo and I love to do during the fall is attend a lil something called Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios (I've chatted about it most recently here). That means I do a lotta mobile crafting. The above fall-themed embroidered blouse was one of those crafts I did on the plane. I'm always surprised when I get busted at the airport for a couple extra ounces of contact solution but never my needles and scissors. But whateves.

Speaking of Halloween Horror Nights, here's a sneak peak. Looks like...fun, right?! We've been going for years so it takes a lot to spook us now. But I do have a soft spot for crazy-eyed, chain-saw wielding homicidal maniacs. Call me crazy. My Walking Dead-inspired 1950's dress is always fun to wear.

Y'all know that my love for vintage runs deep...and that goes for all things Halloween as well. The old horror movies are my jam (Hitchcock's The Birds is my all time fave movie) so when I found this fun fabric with cartoon-y characters from horror flicks on it, I knew I had to make a dress...and a needle felted sweater to match.

I had so much fun painting The Bride, Busted last fall. It really reminded me just how much I love to paint. It truly was a test in color mixing as creating that variety of values was not easy. Lil known fact: I actually graduated college with a double degree: one in painting and the other in art education. I don't paint all that much...but I just might have to create another one of these with another villianess busted. I'm open to suggestions! By the way, this print is available for sale here. 

Speaking of vintage horror films, the fabric on this dress is full of 'em! So much fun inspiration on one piece of fabric. I've been itching to recreate large paintings based on old horror movies as well. I need more hours in my day!

Last year, I really got inspired by vintage Halloween decor, especially black cats. I transformed this lacy jacket with my Naughty Kitty Club design. Current number of members: 1. 

The cat made another appearance this year in the form of these vintage Halloween trick or treat buckets. I really can't stop laughing at these crazy guys. I so wanna make more of these, they were so fun and easy to create! 

The vintage buckets were made with Celluclay...and the little pumpkin puppet above was created with paper clay. I love exploring different types of clays from the craft store. Each has it's own unique consistency and texture. 

Fall also means needle felting time in my world. There is something super cozy about bundling up with a blanket, breaking out the wool roving and stabbing something repeatedly (uhhh). The eyeballs I needle felted onto these Target pants are always fun to wear. Haunted Mansion knickers, anyone?

Perhaps a needle felted foxy stoll?

WHHOOOO's down with an owl-tastic cardigan? 

 After a while, the colors of fall start to bring me down a pinch. So I love that I can brighten my wardrobe and my decor with a punch of el Dia de los Muertos. Check out these painted planters. 

And this here dress. You can find so much fun Day of the Dead-inspired fabrics at the craft stores and online right now! 

 In fact, that's where this fabric came from, Joann's. Minus the rainbow of pom poms, I added those. 

 I love having buddies over for craft nights. Last year, we created these Day of the Dead heads! 

And another "flight craft", my embroidered necklace! 

I can't wait to wrap up some fall projects I've been working on and start some new ones. My only wish is that fall was longer! 

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DIY: El Dia de los Muertos Calaveras

Hey, cats and kittens! I hope this Tuesday night finds you somewhere snuggled under a cozy blanket. It's been rainy and chilly for the last coupla days here and I'm just about over it. At school, the combo of Halloween week, full moon and rain-induced recess-less days has been a trifecta of cray. Did I mention that I've been giving the kids candy to draw as their sketchbook prompt? Yeah, crazy breeds crazy 'round here. 

At school, my kids are neck deep in self-portrait town. However, I did wanna introduce them to el Dia de los Muertos this week so I have been showing this super sweet and short clip to my younger students. 

And if you aren't into cartoon-land, this short clip is also a great intro to Day of the Dead. A couple of weeks ago, I had a buncha artsy buddies over to mi casa to create some Day of the Dead inspired pieces.

Doncha just love 'em? Did I mention that most o' my artsy friends are also art teacherin' types? Yeah, they got mad skillz.

To set the mood, I found some great party decor at Target and in my personal stash. Did I mention that I love hosting craft nights because decorating is so stinkin fun? It also means that I clean the house which is a highly rare occurrence. Just ask the hubs. 

For this craft, we used aluminum foil and Sculpey. In my Sculpey stash, I have tons of white. It's always the last color I use when I purchase the Sculpey packs so this worked out perfectly for our craft night! 

The inspo for this craft came from my new friend Janet. We met at The Frist when I taught my needle felting class. She was wearing this fab necklace and, when I asked, she told me her hubs had created it. Just last week, I received one from her in the mail. Thank you, Janet and Wayne! I love my necklace. 

The necklace is surprisingly lightweight and Janet told me that the reason is that the armature is made of foil! So on craft night, we all sculpted one from a gently wadded piece of foil. 

Using glass jars, we flattened the Sculpey. In my art room, in a pinch, I simply used one of our supply cups. 

Then wrap that bad boy around your foil and, viola! You've got the start of your calavera!

I used my thumbs to create eye sockets and then the rest is up to you! 

My art teacherin' buddy Sara showed us how to roll a coil of clay, flatten it and then roll that into a spiral to create a rose. Those worked out beautifully in our designs. 

 With our clay scraps, we created these marbled dishes with the golden edges. This is a craft from my fave blog that I'd been meaning to try for a while. They turned out beautifully! 

The possibilities of what could be down with these are endless: add a magnet to the back, a pin, use it as a necklace or, my fave idea, frame it in a miniature picture frame and put on display!

No matter what, happy creating! 

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DIY: El Dia de los Muertos Reversible Embroidered Necklace

Oh, y'all. I know I shouldn't say this after a glorious Fall Break (of which many of you were unfairly shafted) but I am so stinkin' beat. I dunno if it's the weather, the lack of proper nutrition (last year's Halloween candy for brekky? Don't mind if I do, nom-nom-nom.) or the fact that I stayed up entirely too late working on this here DIY. All I know is that the absolute highlight of my day, THEE single most glorious moment was, are you ready? The removal of my bra. That's right. I do believe the words: "OMG, So. Much. Better." came outs my mouth. And just as I was throwing the blankets over my head for a lil afternoon shut-eye, the hubs says those dreaded oh-crap, I-totes-forgot! words, "Happy Anniversary! Wanna go out for dinner?" 

To which I threw off my blankets to expose my super seductive sweatpants and inside out t-shirt and said, "Why would you wanna go anywhere when you can stay (patting the bed) right here?"

This was understandably met with silence which was then followed by, "So. Halloween candy dinner?"

Das right. I know how to do a 13th year anniversary, y'all.

Mitch (the man who actually hates that I refer to him as "hubs" which, of course, can only mean one thing: refer to him as "hubs" as much as possible) and I began dating my first year of teaching some 17-ish years ago. So many things have changed since. I no longer wear ill-fitting mom jeans or color my hair (both things the hubs talked me out of, thankfully) and that dude no longer shaves. Everrr. 

Oh, pardon me, was this a DIY post? I just can't believe I got sidetracked with a sidebar conversation, that's just soo-oo-oooh unlike me (cue fake laugh and hair flip). Ahem. Let's chat abouts this DIY already, shall we?

When anniversary man and I were on our recent trip to SoCal (excuse me, but I gotta know, does calling Southern California "SoCal" make me sound as a-hole-ish as I think it does? Yeah, that's what I thought), we took a trip down Olvera Street. I absolutely loved it there especially all of the Dia de los Muertos goodness.

Like these happy dudes. Knowing that we had a long plane ride ahead (and many rounds of traffic jams. It's LA, people. No matter what time of day you travel, one thing is for certain: you will be sitting in your car on a highway at a dead stop for no visible reason.), I brought some fabric and my embroidery supplies along. After being inspired, I drew a rough idea in my sketchbook and then proceeded to draw out my idea on fabric in colored pencil. 

And after a coupla hours (okay, prolly more than that, I'm super slow and picky. I take out more stitches than I put in!), I had this complete. Oh! I forgot to mention...

This here was the wooden blank I used as the template for my necklace. I picked this up (along with several other woody-goodies) from Rock'n Wood. Super great shop and lightening fast delivery, y'all! When I bought it, I originally thought I'd be painting on the base but then the idea of adding embroidery popped into my extraordinarily small brain.

To adhere the embroidery to the wooden base, I use my trusty Tacky Glue. Y'all I love this stuff. So much so I even hypothesized what the REAL Aleene might be like here. After adhering both my little embroidery pieces, I added some ribbon (from some old Anthropologie gift wrap) around the edge. I had a really groovy old broken necklace that found a new life in the form of this here piece.

And since traffic proved to be extra trafficky, once finished with one side of my necklace, I decided to do the reverse. So, in honor of the hubs and I's anniversary, I did a dancing couple (just kidding, this idea had nothing to do with our anniversary, I'm not nearly as sentimental and thoughtful as I'd like y'all to believe. Hence the sweatpants and inside out t-shirt.)

This time I actually have photographic evidence of the process. Here's my wee sketch.

 And my lap whilst sitting in traffic. You can kinda see the white pencil lines on the fabric here.

I got all cray with the teeny tiny stitches. Surprisingly, for someone who doesn't loooove embroidery, this was actually super fun. Well, "super fun" might be a bit of an exaggeration. Enjoyable? Satisfying? Fun-ish? Better than wanting to throw myself out of a non-moving, stuck-in-traffic car? That's prolly more like it.

 Oh, look, me pre-sweatpants. 

Thought bubble: How many hours until I can take off this stinkin' bra?!

And there you have it, kids! A reversible Dia de los Muertos embroidered necklace. Thanks for dropping by...now, time to wrangle up last year's Halloween candy. This anniversary dinner ain't gonna unwrap and give us cavities by itself!

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