Marbled Blacklight Pumpkin DIY

October 9, 2018 by Alexa Leave a Comment

If you’re a pumpkin crafter, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of nail polish pumpkins. The thing with nail polish pumpkins; however, is that you have very little polish to work with and you generally can only dip smaller-sized pumpkins with them. Also I personally think using nail polish is a lot more stinkier than spray paint (this may be a personal preference). Anyway, after seeing this post a few years back Alisa Burke marbleizing paper and ornaments, I knew I wanted to try it with a pumpkin and I’m actually happy with how mine turned out. Let me show you how easy and fun these are to make!

What you need:

— faux pumpkin
— various colors of spray paint (I used neon so they’d look good under blacklight)
— large bin filled with water
— Gloves (get the gloves, see below)

Before you begin:
Fill a large plastic bin with water. You want enough water so you can submerge your entire pumpkin.

Spray the first color on top. It will spread out as you spray into a halo shape in the water.
Keep spraying and adding more colors till the surface of the water is totally filled with colors.

Once you’ve sprayed the surface, immediately dip your pumpkin.

It takes a little force to push the pumpkin below the water. It was hard for me to capture on camera, but once your pumpkin is totally dunked, you need to pull it up lifting off the paint from the surface of the water.

If there’s an area of the pumpkin that you’ve missed, you can dunk it back in and focus on that area. You may layer over top of a. section you’ve already covered, but because this is abstract and random, it’s hard to mess it up!

Remember when I said you needed gloves. This is why. I got the spray paint on my hand and it took a couple days for it totally to be off my hand. There was a lot of hand washing those two days. LOL.

Here’s what it looked like when I set up my blacklight. I was wanting the neon to really pop and pop it did! I am looking forward to putting this in my glowing decorations this Halloween!

Candy Corn Chevron Pumpkin DIY

September 23, 2013 by Alexa Leave a Comment

These days, I can’t seem to get enough of candy corn! You may have seen one of my other candy corn projects…the vases, the wreath, button pumpkin, or even the onesie. I just love orange and yellow in general, so that explains my fascination with the motif.

Fun random fact: As a child I would always press the candy corn on the plate or table and flatten out the white part of the candy before I would eat it. I know that isn’t THAT fascinating, but I do recall liking to eat them as a 3 or 4 year old. So I guess you can say that’s where this all began…

Here’s what you need to get started:

– White pumpkin (real or faux)

– Tulip Slick paint in orange and yellow

– Painter’s tape

Using the masking tape, make your chevron stripes and press firmly in place. I eyeballed mine, but you may want to be a little more accurate by using a ruler and cut pieces of tape. I tried to make the stripes at a 90 degree angle, each about 1″ tall/wide.

Test out your Tulip slick on a piece of paper to get all the air bubbles out. Now do quick squiggles back and forth on the first chevron stripe. It’s ok if you go over the tape. There will be a fine edge when the tape is removed.

You may prefer to do just half of you design during one part of the day to let it dry, then return to it later in the day to do the other side. It can get tricky to hold if you do all at one time.

Next use the Yellow Tulip Slick and do the bottom chevron stripe.

While my paint was still wet, I carefully removed it to reveal a clean, raised paint design! Let dry completely!

I love the dimensional look this paint gives to this project. It adds a nice pop of color and texture to the pumpkin!

It looks so cute bunched together with my other pumpkins…

…and my candy corn bottles. I really hope no one steals them off my front stoop!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

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Crayon Scribble Pumpkin Craft Tutorial

August 12, 2013 by Alexa Leave a Comment

I’m really excited to share my first pumpkin of the season today here on the Swell Life blog! As you know pumpkins are my favorite thing EVER to craft, so I’ve been having lots of fun dreaming up ways to make a pumpkin POP for Halloween. Last year, I had my crayon drip art pumpkin go viral, so I decided to revisit the use of crayons and this one doesn’t require anything other than a pack of crayons and a good ol’ pumpkin!

Yep, I said it, it only takes 2 things to get this awesomely colorful pumpkin that both you and your kids will love making together. All I did was scribble in random colors on a store bought pumpkin as you see below…

That’s it. No messy or sharp tools for the kids and they get to leave their own creative mark! A couple things to note:

1. I tested this both on a foam and real pumpkin. It works great on both! Of course, brighter color crayons will produce better results.

2. Play around with patterns and scribbles for your own design. You may decide just to do an initial or something Halloween-y like a bat or skull. The possibilities are endless.

3. I recommend doing this on a white pumpkin, though you can try darker colors like black and purple on an orange pumpkin. The white just takes so well to the color!

Here’s a couple more views. As you can see, it was hard to get in around the top of the stem, but, it really doesn’t affect the overall look if it were to sit on your porch or on display in your house!

I would love it if you stay a while and check out some of my other fun pumpkin designs. I have over 30 fun tutorials to get inspired by.

Until next time Swellions

Alexa

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Make a Halloween Boo Pennant

September 22, 2011 by Alexa 3 Comments

Here’s a cute Halloween pennant project you can whip up in an afternoon that will get you spirited for Halloween. And it’s in my favorite colors…black, white, orange, and purple! Here’s how you make it!

Halloween Boo Pennant
Supplies:
– Scribbles 3D Paint in orange, purple and black
– Aleene’s Original Tacky Glue
– Aleene’s Crystal Clear Tacky Spray
– white adult t-shirt or white cotton material
– large piece of paper (11×17) and pencil
– large piece of foam core
– X-acto knife
– Scissors
– Pinking shears
– Ruler
– Coordinating 3/8″ ribbon spools in colors of your choice
– Eyelet ribbon in orange
– pouncer
– paper plate
– felt in black and white
– 3/8″ dowel rod

How to do it:

1) On a large piece of paper, draw a triangular pennant shape with your pencil and ruler. Cut out the pattern.
2) Trace the pattern lightly with pencil onto your cotton t-shirt material.
3) Spray the back of your material with Tacky Spray in a well-ventilated area. Press onto the foam core and smooth out any air bubbles.
4) Using X-acto, cut out mounted material on foam core following the pattern you lightly sketched on.
5) On your paper plate, squeeze out orange Scribbles paint. Load pouncer and dab a couple of times on paper plate to remove excess. Randomly dot polka dots all over pennant. Let dry.
6) Cut out 3 3″ circles using pinking shears from black felt. Cut out 3 2″ circles from white felt. Use Tacky Glue to mount the two pieces to each other.
7) Draw dots and lines on the black felt as shown using the orange and purple Scribbles paints as shown. On the white felt, draw the letters B – O – O in a swirly fashion with Black Scribbles paint. Once dry, glue these three pieces onto the pennant.
8) Run the orange eyelet ribbon around the edge of the pennant with Tacky Glue.
9) Run the orange eyelet ribbon around the edge of the pennant with Tacky Glue.
10) Using Tacky Glue wrap ribbon around dowel rod. I first used purple up and sown the dowel, then wrapped orange around the dowel to create a fun barber shop pole effect.
11) Cut 3 different ribbons in 1 foot strips. Tie in a knot in the middle. Glue on top of dowel rod with Tacky Glue.
12) Using glue, attach ribbon-wrapped dowel to pennant. Let dry.

Now you have a fun and festive accent to take with you trick or treating or to display on your porch or by your pumpkin! Here’s a fun detail! I love how vibrant and funky the colors turned out!!

Hope you enjoyed this little project!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

P.S. I linked this up at the following Linky parties!

Tatertots and Jello Weekend Wrapup

Terrorific Tuesday Week 1

October 4, 2010 by Alexa Leave a Comment

It’s that time again! I am hear to officially present the first fun and frightful roundup of Terrorific Tuesday for 2010. So sit back and relax with your hot apple cider or Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (whatever you prefer) and get ghoulishly inspired by the projects below!

Kate Pullen shares 3 cute digital stamps Free cute spider digital stamps.

Phyllis Dobbs makes an easy Halloween Decopauge Pumpkin Treat Basket.

Jenna Excell shares her super cute and spooky Bones Halloween Apron.

Korinne Zimmerman a.k.a. Crafterella makes a wonderful spray bleach shirt using an adorable Moon Owl Stencil.

Glory’s Mischief haunts her house with her Faux Cats in window.

Ann Butler makes this boo-tiful Reverse Collage Decopauge Jack-o-Lantern.

Eileen Hull tucks away Halloween cards in this fun Sizzix ScoreBoard notebook pocket.

Silvia Chenault and Patty Cappelluti share two super spooky projects on Silvia’s blog: Vampire Art and Creepy Mirrors!

Pattiewack shows you how to make this cute and Wicked Pillow.

Messy Missy brings the LOLs with her Mean Kitteh.

Alexa Westerfield a.k.a. Swelldesigner whips up a Cute Candy Corn CD Cupcake Stand .

Kathy Murillo a.k.a. Crafty Chica delights us with glittery Skull Bookmarks.

That’s it for this week! If you are interested in playing in my fun Terrorific Tuesday roundup, e-mail me at swelldesigner (at) gmail (dot) com and she’ll send you the details!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Googly Eye Crafts revisited

September 15, 2010 by Alexa 5 Comments

5-easy-googly-eye-videos

This is repost from a couple of years ago that I wanted to reshare! I just love googly eyes and the instant personality they give! Enjoy!

I had so many ideas that I wanted to do today. Just in my ride home, I came up with ten terrorific possibilities, but in the mind of swell, you have to reel it in and stay focused. Knowing that I wanted to do a lot of ideas, I stuck to a theme and stayed within the lines of all things googly eyes. You may remember the googly eye choker that I did a few months back that was really well received. Well, I wanted to expand this idea and come up with some really fun and easy crafts that anyone can do…I’m going to share the basic idea of how to achieve these looks, but if you want more info, please e-mail me at swelldesigner@yahoo.com and I’ll give you more details…OK, on with the show!

To get the googly eye frame above, paint a $1 frame (I got mine at Michaels) with acrylic paint. Then use a craft glue like Liquid Fusion® to glue various sizes of googly eyes onto the frame. Print out a picture to fit the frame and insert it into the opening of the frame (If you notice, I used the Terrorific Tuesday mascot, my black cat Pixie). Glue googly eyes to the picture and hang. I got the idea to put googly eyes onto the picture from one of Jennifer Perkin’s (the Naughty Secretary) photos. Click here to see that creation.

Striped headband with Googly Eyed flower

I wanted to create a fun accessory that would be something a little different for Halloween. I painted this headband form and sealed it, but you can also wrap it with ribbon and glue gun it if you’d rather have that look. On my version, I actually wrapped Rainbow Tape around it, but you can also wrap ribbon if you want. On a large button, I placed a medium sized googly eye in the center using Liquid Fusion. I then glued several smaller googly eyes around it to complete the look. I glued it off to one side of the headband and voila, I have a super cute googly eyed flower headband!

Googly Eyed Pumpkin

I purchased really small faux pumpkins at Wal-mart for a dollar. I glued on googly eyes in two different sizes with Liquid Fusion (yes, it was intentional-ha ha) Using a liner brush, I brushed on the features with acrylic paint in black (you could also use a permanent marker if you didn’t have paint) I added in additional hair and eyebrows and put on a bow for a completed look. This is really quick craft especially for little hands.

Googly Eyed Charm Necklace

I actually created this last year, but I thought someone would perhaps enjoy it for Halloween accessorizing. I painted a 1.5″ wooden disk with acrylics, then used E-6000 to adhere the mini googly eyes on it. I left a small hole at top for drilling. I then mixed up some Envirotex Lite to coat the charm following packaging directions (lay your charm on wax paper for this process – trust me on this one). Let dry for several days, then use small drill to drill into resin and disk. Thread jewelry cord through disk and it’s ready to wear! All eyes will be on you!

Googly Eyed Choker

Another fun idea to try is this choker. I cut a piece of felt about 1.5″ inch wide and the length to be shorter than my neck diameter. I then added ribbon clinch clasps at both ends. Using jump rings and chain, I made a final closure at the end. I then used Fabric Fusion Glue to adhere the googly eyes to the felt. I think this has a whimsical gothic feel to it. This could also be made into a wrist cuff or headband if you are so inspired.

And finally, probably the easiest of all the googly eyed crafts…

Googly Eyed Earrings
You simply adhere large googly eyes to earring post blanks and let dry. You can also add the googly eye to a ring blank or brooch pin for a wearable conversation starter!

On a final note, if you go to Flickr and type in googly you can see all kinds of cool and creative pictures and inspiration. It is really worth a look. And if you notice at the top of the matching results, you can change it to be most relevant, most recent or most interesting. Most interesting is the way to go in this search!

Hope you had fun with the googly eye crafts. I know I did.

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Over 35 Swell Halloween Projects Compiled!

August 4, 2010 by Alexa 21 Comments

Over the past few years, I’ve created a lot of crafts, especially Halloween crafts! There’s something about Halloween and the fact that it’s a bit funky/silly/spooky and subversive that I connect with. I love that it is a time that people get to express themselves in a different way and just have fun!

I wanted to compile all these projects for you to enjoy over the Halloween season. I know I’m already starting to think about my Halloween craft projects and I’m betting you are too, so enjoy these ideas and check back to my blog for more inspiration and ideas in the next couple of months leading up to Halloween!

Dollar Store Candle Charger

Snooki Halloween Pumpkin

Twilight Cupcake Stand

Candy Corn Cupcake Stand

Cupcake Wrapper Wreath

Upcycled Starbucks Vase

Simple Halloween Button Earrings

Decopauged Halloween Tissue Ornaments

Deviled Egg Halloween Costume

Green Slime Lantern

Easy Halloween Ribbon/Button Bracelet

Spooktastic Halloween Pennants

Simple Halloween Button Earrings

Decopauged Halloween Tissue Ornaments

Deviled Egg Halloween Costume

Glitter Boo Banner

Mini Grim Reaper Glitter Trinket Box

Bewitching Plaque

Halloween Pennant Cupcake Picks

The Easiest Halloween T-shirt you’ll ever make

A Halloween Costume Masterpiece

Easy Stripe and Polka Dot Pumpkins

Dark Shadows Photo Frame

Vintage Halloween Character Ornaments

Halloween Sticker Crafts

Frightfully Funky Feather Wreath

Polaroid Pumpkins

Breast Cancer Awareness Pumpkins

Halloween Swirly Doily Purse

Halloween Spooky Swirl Vase

Fun and Funky Halloween Doodle/Star Earrings

Veggie Head Halloween Party Idea

Halloween Composition Notebook

Diva Witch Canvas

Ribbon Fascinators

Glow in the Dork Wall Hanging

Bloody Pumpkins

Cute CD Cupcake Stand

Halloween Cupcake Picks

More projects coming soon!

Terrorific Tuesday 2009 Week 3

October 19, 2009 by Alexa Leave a Comment

Another week, another fun roundup of Halloween craft ideas! I want to give a shoutout to everyone who has participated over the past few weeks! I can really tell that you guys have really enjoyed sharing and making your projects. I think there is something about Halloween that enlivens people and gets them excited about crafting throughout the holiday months! I know it puts some mojo in my holiday step!

Now onto the projects!

Spooky Spider House
Silvia creates a miniature haunted house that is spooky and oh-so fun!

Witchy Embroidered Postcard
Sharron Westerfield brews up a whimsical witch postcard

The Impatient Crafter
Vintage plastic owls become the focal point of a charming necklace you can wear for Halloween and all year round!

Pumpkin and cat felt treat bag
Felt bag that can also be made as a wall hanging or door hanger

Cheryl Ball’s Halloween Door Hangers
Create these door hangers from inexpensive gloves for Trick of Treaters

My Big Mouth
Make a creepy wire tree just in time for Halloween!

Mel’s Day of the Dead Necklace
Linked chain, skulls and spiderwebs for Dia de los Muertos

Crafty Chica’s Matchbook Shrines
Adorable little folding shrines that fit in your pocket!

Paper Pumpkin
Make a plump paper pumpkin from some strips of paper plus a little Halloween craftiness!

Polymer Clay Zombie
Candace’s diabolical plan to populate the world with zombies continues!

The Impatient Crafter for iLoveToCreate
Make a retro style styrofoam ornament into a fab Halloween Party centerpiece! Madge shows you how using iLoveToCreate products!

How to Make a Spooky Spice Rack
Come make a spooky spice rack with Crafterella, she’s sharing her unique labels with everyone!

Halloween Treat Tote
Conjure up a quick Halloween cupcake basket using new ScoreBoard dies!

Brenda Pinnick’s Halloween Banner
A little scary, a little fun, this delightful banner celebrates all things Halloween. Made using Brenda Pinnick Sizzix dies, glitter and ribbon.

Creepy Candlesticks
Pattie Wack turns mini pumpkins into a boo-tiful Halloween lighting idea!

Strands of Beads
Melissa explores the holiday possibilities in a black and white checkered bead

Glow in the Dork Wall Hanging
Turn off the lights and have a laugh with this goofy wall hanging from Alexa Westerfield!

Picture Perfect Pumpkin
Vanessa Coppola turns a traditional pumpkin into a decopauged masterpiece!

Simple Halloween Button Earrings

October 8, 2009 by Alexa 1 Comment

There’s no reason to spends lots of cash on buying Halloween jewelry accessories when you can make your own for yourself or family friends in minutes! Here’s some super swell and cute ideas for making sweet button earrings that won’t break the budget!

What you need:
– buttons in various sizes and Halloween colors (go small or large, but in general I’d stay away from 2″ buttons, those may not work so well, but I’d love to see you prove me wrong!)
– Liquid Fusion Glue
– earring posts and backs
– mini rhinestones (optional)
– fine tip permanent marker (optional)
– glitter (optional)

What you do:
1. Lay out your buttons in front of you and play with the different shapes and sizes stacking them on top of each other until you figure out your configuration. You can do exact sets or mix and match styles if you want. Halloween is a kooky time anyway, so have fun with your jewelry!
2. Use a small amount of Liquid Fusion glue to glue your buttons together. Let dry.
3. Glue your finished stacked buttons to your earring posts. At this point I usually set my buttons face down on a flat surface so that the post sticks straight up in the air. Let dry.

That’s it! Have fun with this! Add to the button goodness by doodling around your buttons with a permanent marker (use clear nail polish to seal it) or by sprinkling a little glitter accents. Another fun idea is to bling up your earrings with mini rhinestones. Also consider going goofy by adding some mini googly eyes! The sky’s the limit (at least that’s what a witch told me…hee hee…I realize that was really bad and so not funny).

In honor of my 24 Halloween crafts in 24 hours, I’m giving away a Swell & Spooktastic Halloween prize pack. Click here to check it out and enter!

Check back next hour for another Spooktacular Halloween craft!

Alexa

Terrorific Tuesday 2009 Week 1

October 6, 2009 by Alexa 1 Comment

Terrorific Tuesdays are back! This first Tuesday of the month, I’ve rounded up some awesome inspiration that will hopefully give you ideas or inspire you to join in! If you would like to join in and create a project, craft, story, poem, photo…or anything else creative and relating to Halloween, e-mail me at swelldesigner@yahoo.com. Make sure to include “Terrorific Tuesday” in the subject line.

This week’s roundup include jewelry, fashion art, spooky décor, and much more! So sit back and enjoy this helping of Halloween goodness!

Studio Mama Blog
Creep out your friends with this Leatherface-esque collection of eyeballs strung on hardware!

The Impatient Crafter
Halloween is right around the corner and Madge kicks off the season with a stunningly spooky mixed media necklace and a bonus short story sure to send shivers up your spine!

Living Locurto
Kids will love dressing up this cute doggie in different costumes with this Halloween Doggie Dress-Up Free Printable!

Sharron Westerfield
Create an adorable jack-o-lantern baby bib for your favorite little one!

Crafterella
Join Crafterella in making you own spooky Mantipi specimen jar (with tutorial) using polymer clay.

The Fearless Crafter
Welcome your guests with this cute and creepy Spooky Spider Wreath wreath!

My Big Mouth
Craft a mini Halloween candy dish that looks like Frankenstein

Strands of Beads
Melissa creates a simple skully necklace to celebrate the season.

Kate Pullen, the Rubber Stamping Guide at About.com
Create a Halloween pyramid box perfect for use as a Halloween favor box or as an unusual decoration.

Allee Marderosian for iLoveToCreate
Take your look to the Darkside with these Twilight Romance tees, perfect for Halloween festivities or everyday adventures!

Candace Jedrowicz – Spirit Clay
These sparkly Candy Corn Riot earrings are made using real candy corn! No kidding!

Brenda Pinnick
Brenda uses her Sizzix Die to create a batty neck piece you’ll want to sink your teeth into!

The Impatient Crafter for iLoveToCreate
Madge shows you how to make a super cute Halloween tote in this week’s I Love to Create post!

Crafty Chica
The Chica, ILoveToCreate & Craft Zine have teamed up for a skullerific Dia de los Muertos Shrine Contest!

Alexa Westerfield a.k.a. Swelldesigner
Inspired by her love for True Blood, Swelldesigner takes a stab at bloody white pumpkins!

The Swell Designer

Random musings of a crazy, crafty, pop culture-obsessed girl!

Marbled Blacklight Pumpkin DIY

Candy Corn Chevron Pumpkin DIY

Crayon Scribble Pumpkin Craft Tutorial

Make a Halloween Boo Pennant

Terrorific Tuesday Week 1

Googly Eye Crafts revisited

Over 35 Swell Halloween Projects Compiled!

Terrorific Tuesday 2009 Week 3

Simple Halloween Button Earrings

Terrorific Tuesday 2009 Week 1