Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Halloween Chocolate Dipped Rice Krispies Lollipop Treats



These tasty treats are super easy to make if you start with Kellogg's Rice Krispies Treats. (Costco sells a big box of 60 pieces.)  Because the bars are softer than ones you would make from scratch, I suggest that you dip each bar in melted chocolate, decorate them with the candy sprinkles (purchased from HM Ben Franklin Crafts), and then let them harden on wax paper. The chocolate melt candy wafers are available at HM Ben Franklin Crafts.  To melt them before dipping, just follow the directions on the bag.  Once the chocolate has solidified, you can insert the lollipop sticks (also available at HM BFC).  (If you try to put the stick in when the bars are undipped, the bars may fall apart.) Slipped into a cello lollipop bag (from HM BFC) and tied with a ribbon or pipe cleaner, these treats are sure to make your spooky trick-o-treater give you a toothy grin.  Enjoy the sweet, treats which are the perks of enduring the scariness of Halloween night. Boo! 



Saturday, October 26, 2024

Quick Decorated Halloween Bag



I needed a Halloween bag to deliver treats but all I had were flowery ones or plain white bags.  Since of course I couldn't give handmade Halloween treats in a plain bag, I opted to decorate a white one. I started by spraying the bag with Tim Holtz Distress Mica Stain (sold at HM Ben Franklin Crafts).  I love this product because not only does it come in really cool colors, it imparts a nice metallic sheen which is perfect for Halloween.  After the bag was dry, I glued on some cut pieces of printed card stock from my stash (collected over years). To jazz up the bag even more, I wound two orange sparkle pipe cleaners around the handles and glued on purple sparkle pom poms.  This was an easy fix to change a boring bag into a colorful, exciting treat bag.  If you don't have Halloween paper scraps lying around, you can always hurry down to your nearest HM Ben Franklin Crafts store to buy some 12x12 sheets and then you WILL have leftover paper scraps to use on your next projects.  Halloween seems to come around faster and faster every year. I love having Halloween supplies on hand so I can spooky-up anything in a jiffy.  Have a colorful, spooky, decorative Halloween!  
 



Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Howl-o-ween Card



This card started with a Pink and Main Spooky Eyes Foilable Panel and Purple Cheer Foil.  Using my Minc  mini foiling machine, I applied the foil to the Spooky Eyes panel.  Then I cut out a 3-1/2" circle with a Spellbinder die.  I glued the 'spooky face' moon to a 5-1/2" square card made from a printed Halloween card stock that I 'found' in my stash. I stamped the howling wolf from the Lawn Fawn Wolf Before and After and the wolf from the Wild Wolves set.  Both wolves were colored with water color pencils and Copic pens before die cutting them with the matching dies.  These wolves were adhered to the card with adhesive foam dots.  Finally, the words from the Lawn Fawn Happy Howloween set were stamped on a strip of scrap (this is the print on the inside of the card).  That was it...super easy Howl-o-ween Card! Hope you're having Halloween fun incorporating new products with what you've been 'saving'.  My stash is going down one sheet at a time...LOL! only 381 to go! Hahaha!


P.S. I forgot to mention that after foiling the Spooky Eyes panel, I decided to spray on Tim Holtz Distress Inks (purple and green) and wipe some of it off  because the panel was too white.  


Friday, October 18, 2024

Halloween Scene Card with Confetti Moon

 

Recently, I bought some Halloween confetti so of course I just HAD to make a confetti card. LOL!  Rather than make the whole card a shaker, I decided to just make the moon opening contain shakable confetti.  This card started with Pink and Main Foilable cards and transfer foil. To make the background I used the purple foil that was peeled off the foilable card after it was heated in the Minc Heidi Swapp mini machine.  This normally thrown away used foil was applied to a color blend foilable card.  I really like the spooky faces that lurk in the purple background.


Next the Lawn Fawn die was used to die cut the scent from black paper.  I used a circle Sizzix die to cut out the moon from the foiled background.  Behind the moon I taped a small cello (Heiko) bag filled with Halloween confetti.  Then the whole scene was glued together and then taped to a yellow card blank with double stick (Heiko) tape.  Although it looks complicated,  it was quite simple to construct this card because there was just die cutting and no coloring.  If you haven't invested in a foiling machine (like Minc) I think you will be surprised that it is not very expensive but that owning one unleashes a multitude of creative possibilities.  I guess I'm like a magpie and I love shiny things so foiling really appeals to me.  I think Halloween is an especially fun time that just seems to need something spooky and shiny.  Happy Scary, Sparkly Crafting!   


Monday, October 14, 2024

Candy Corn Halloween Earrings


Did you love candy corn as a kid?  I did and I still do! For me, it wouldn't be Halloween without candy corn so of course when I found glass candy corn beads, I had to get some.  I held on to the strand of candy corn beads for awhile before I decided to use some of them to make earrings.  They were simple to make requiring just gold filled ear wires, gold filled ball tipped head pins, Swarovski crystals, tiny white beads, and of course the candy corn glass beads.  The tools I used to fashion these earring were two small tipped pliers and jewelry wire cutters. If you can't find glass candy corn beads, I suggest you make your own candy corn with Fimo clay (sold at HM BFC)which can be baked to look very similar to real candy corn.  Also real candy corn can be painted with 1-minute UV-LED resin and hardened under a UV lamp to resemble real candy corn.  I recommend not drilling the candy (it will probably crack) but rather gluing on a gold filled bell cap to hang the resin candy corn from the earring wires.  I hope that you will have some safe Halloween excitement and create some fun Halloween jewelry for yourself. Have a candy corny kind of Halloween!










 

Thursday, October 10, 2024

Autumn Fox with Halloween Treat Boxes


 As you can see the Autumn Fox and I are still busy and having fun making Halloween treat boxes.  Like the last set of boxes, these were made with an i-crafter die (Valentine Gable Box).  As with the i-crafter die used in the last post, this set comes with small dies to make labels and embellishments but I chose not to use them because I was making Halloween themed boxes. It was easy to use the pages in the Simple Stories 6x8 Faboolous paper pad to die cut out the boxes ( only two sheets needed per box) and hand cut the labels from pages within the pad.

                                                  

Fabri-tac glue and Heiko tape were used to assemble the boxes and simple thin ribbons were tied through the die cut holes.  I like the unique style of these boxes and the fact that they have adequate space for yummy treats. I had fun matching the papers to the labels contained within the Simple Stories paper pad.

For this box the ghost label was hand cut and iridescent glitter applied over the ghost image that was spread with glue.
This box was probably the most successful of the three boxes because the label fit well on the box with just a little trimming and the extra part of the label was adhered to the back of the box (not shown). The basic supplies for these boxes are very minimal and many boxes can be constructed from just the paper pad and and die set.  I hope you'll take the time to make some special Halloween treat boxes for the special little (or big) ones in your life. I know they'll always remember your generous handcrafted Halloween sweetness.



Sunday, October 6, 2024

Halloween Milk Carton Candy Boxes


 I spied an  i-crafter Milk Carton Box die at HM Ben Franklin Crafts and thought it would make great Halloween Candy Boxes. Using papers from a Doodlebug 6x6 Halloween paper pad, I was able to make each carton from just two sheets of paper.  Some of the sheets in the pad had labels which I hand cut and attached to the boxes by using a tiny hole puncher and some skinny ribbon to tie the labels to the boxes. The i-crafter die set had parts to cut out a label and the word, 'candy' but I chose not to use them.  I had to measure and cut out the candy image panels before attaching them to the boxes with Fabri-Tac glue.  I also used Heiko double stick tape to join the sides of the boxes. At HM Ben Franklin Crafts I discovered a new extra skinny Heiko double stick tape which was useful for some of the smaller joints of the boxes.  These boxes can hold quite a lot of candy for some lucky trick-o-treater. If you get started now, I'm sure you can make enough candy boxes for your neighborhood ghouls and goblins!

                                       




Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Autumn Leaf Papered Box


On a recent trip to the east coast, I spied some autumn oak leaves that were just starting to change color.
They were so pretty that I had to collect and press them.  I knew that I would find some use for the multi-colored autumn leaves.  Once at home I decided to use them to decorate a few boxes.  Beginning with a sturdy L'Occtaine box, I covered it with a fibrous beige washi paper. This was easily done by laying the top of the box onto the washi paper and cutting around it leaving a margin of paper large enough to wrap around the box top sides.  Next glue (Fabri-Tac) was applied evenly to the top surface of the box and the paper was pressed onto it.  The sides of the box lid were then covered with glue and the paper pressed down so that there were four wings on the corners.  These wings were then trimmed closely to the box top corners.  The same thing was done to cover the box bottom.

I decided that I wanted to waterproof my box so I applied 1 minute UV-LED resin to both the top and bottom of the box. I did a little of the box at a time using a small LED light to cure the resin. (Both the resin and light are available at HM BFC).  The resulting box was waterproof but shiny and the washi paper became translucent so that the outer surface of the box became quite yellow.  To correct the look of the box, I decided to try spraying on a Krylon matte finish.  It worked!  The box is now more natural looking (matching the leaf and washi paper).  The box is still yellow so next time I make an autumn leaf box I will use a white or beige box.  Also I will skip applying the resin and just spray the papered box with the matte finish.  So what am I going to do with my autumn leaf box?  Well, of course I will use this one to house the acorns gathered with the leaves. Other leaf boxes will probably be used for gift giving. Next, I have a plan to convert the acorns into jewelry! I love Autumn!