65+ Halloween Projects & Ideas from The Swell Life

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I’m getting into the Halloween spirit here at Casa de Swell!  And what better way to get into the spirit, then to look back at some blog projects from the past!  Shoo!  I’ve done A LOT of Halloween projects. It’s amazing when I actually look at it.  Each project and post is special in it’s own way and really do from my heart each Halloween season!

So, in no particular order, here’s my compilation of 65+ projects from the past 5 years of blogging!  I hope there’s something here you find inspiring and want to try for yourself!  I know I had a blast making them 🙂

I’ll be adding to this list this season as well, I’m sure by next year it will be up to 80+ projects and I’ll have to do a new graphic! So check back throughout the season for some new features!!

Thanks so much for taking time to stop by my blog! I TRULY appreciate it!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

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Terrorific Tuesday Blog Hop Time!

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Welcome to another Terrorific Tuesday Blog Hop party! Can you believe October is almost over? It makes me really, really sad since it is both my birthday month and spooky, fun Halloween month! I guess I’ll just have to file all the wonderful ideas shared on Terrorific Tuesdays away for next year, huh?

For this last edition of Terrorific Tuesdays, I want to leave you with a very special Halloween bout presented to you by my kitten Dexter, and Vlad, the lovable vampire (he’s so ugly he’s cute).

Here’s all you have to do to join the blog hop fun!

– Post your projects relating to Halloween or Fall; Use the Linky Tool below and add your blog link (this is a Halloween blog hop, so please don’t post unrelated projects)

– Add the Terrorific Tuesday Blog Hop button to the post on your blog (a text link is ok too):

The Swell Life's Terrorific Tuesdays

– Click the “Get Code” button below and add the code to the end of your project that you are featuring this week. This will generate more readership and linkage back to all our bloggers.

– Please comment on atleast two blog posts. Let’s support other crafters and creators out there!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Make a Candy Corn Tie Dye Onesie

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If you’re looking for a super cute costume idea for a babe, you can’t get much cuter than a Candy Corn! This is a simple, simple project that will take minutes for you to make but will get lots of oohs and ahhs over how great it looks! And if you’re so inclined, make your own version using an adult shirt or tank top. It’s a great alternative to wear to a party and still look super festive! Here’s how you do it!

Supplies
– White 100% Cotton onesies (I used Gerber brand)
– Tulip® One-step Tie Dye colors in orange and yellow
– Surface covers or plastic bags, craft gloves, and a plastic apron (recommended)

How to make it
1. Rinse out your onesie in your sink, squeeze out water. You want it very damp, but not soaking wet. This is so that the dye takes better to the fabric!

2. Prepare your work area with plastic bags. Tulip actually makes a great surface cover, craft gloves, and apron that you can get at the store when you are picking up your tie dye! It makes the process much easier and neater!


3. Get out your Tulip® One-Step Tie Dye in orange and yellow. Fill them to the top with water, shake and mix up, and you are ready to go!!


4. It’s best to start with the middle orange section first. I found that it was easier to control the dye this way and the colors bled together best. I also have a crazy hand for dye so on another onesie I attempted I went to far up and left very little white. By doing the middle orange section, this was a little “safety” for me so I wouldn’t get too crazy with the dye!


5. Now fill in the yellow section and saturate that area. The dye will very much soak through the fabric and onto the back so no need to flip over to cover up spots.

6. Let the dye sit for 4-6 hours. You will want to cover it up with a plastic bag or surface cover. I found that the results were better if you could let your dye set on the table and cover it rather than having to transport it or move it to another bag to set.


7. Wash the dye out in the sink until the water from the onesie runs clear. You will want to make sure to wash it from the white top with the water flowing down; otherwise some of your orange and yellow colors could flow onto your bright white section, and that would be crappy!

8. Wash by itself on a small load setting with a little detergent. Dry as you normally do!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

P.S. I linked my project up to the following linky parties!

Skip To My Lou’s Made by You Monday

Under the Table and Dreaming

Making the World Cuter Monday
Today’s Creative Blog Get Your Craft On
Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie

5 Freaky Friday Finds

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Every Friday until Halloween on Fridays, I’ll be sharing you 5 Freaky Friday Finds that I love and think you will to! These range from things you can buy to inspiration that might get the ideas flowing (or the blood curdling). Anyway, I hope you have fun with me while I share these fabulous Halloween features!

vintage-halloween-decor-idea

Spooky Vintage Typewriter from Poetic Home.

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Lisa Marie’s amazing lined stripe dress via Chud.com. This is what a sexy Halloween costume SHOULD look like!

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This is a Halloween craft I want to make! Right up my alley with the stripes and vintage-look! (Via the Allsorts blog)

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This cool skull made from pots, pans and other kitchen stuff (via Modern Living).

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Great vintage-inspired Halloween tshirts from SpookShows.com.

I’ll be back in another week with 5 more Freaky Friday Finds!

Mini Grim Reaper Glitter Trinket Box

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grim reaper

Here’s a little creepy guy that would make a great gift, table favor, or party accent. Isn’t making your own Halloween knickknacks the best?

Mini Grim Reaper Glitter Trinket Box

What you need:
– trinket box (I purchase mine at Michaels for $1)
– Tulip Black Metallic 3-D Fashion Paint
– Lime green and purple craft paint
– Tulip Lime Glitter 3-D Fashion Paint
– Paintbrush
– 1.5″ wooden disk
– tealight candle
– chipboard shape figurine (I also purchased this at Michaels)
– glue gun with glue sticks
– acrylic self stick rhinestones in grey and black
– black sparkly felt
– small piece black cardstock

What you do:
1. Paint entire trinket box lime green. Paint wooden disk Purple Let dry.
2. Squeeze out 3-D glitter paint in lime green onto plate and brush on top of acrylic paint. Let dry.
3. Create stripes along top and sides of lid to box with metallic Fashion Paint. Also make dots in between stripes on side. Let dry. Now dot around the edge of the wooden disk and let dry.
4. Stick a rhinestone between each stripe on top of lid.
5. Cut a piece of felt to fit inside lip of lid. Glue gun in place Also cut a piece of felt to wrap around tealight candle and glue. I actually used an old burnt out candle for this. Yay me for recycling!
6. Glue wooden disk to top of tealight candle.
7. Cut a small triangle and glue to back and base of chipboard shape to create a mini easel. Squeeze small bead of glue on bottom of chipboard shape and easel. Press securely.

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!

I hope you enjoyed this quick and easy Halloween craft! Check back next hour for another spooktastic craft!

Alexa

Green Slime Lantern

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slime green lantern

Look! A little lantern Slimer would be proud of making! This little lantern was made in a flash. Here’s how you do it!

Green Slime Lantern

What you need:
– green paper lantern (I purchased mine at Michaels for a $1)
– Tulip 3D Fashion Paint in green of your choice

What you do:
1. Open up your lantern and secure it so that it’s fully open.
2. Shake and squeeze the paint onto a paper plate to get the flow of paint started.
3. Squeeze your paint around the top of the lantern and create a dripping like shape around the entire top of the lantern. Go back and make areas thicker if you deem in necessary.

See, simple and fast. That’s my favorite Halloween craft!

Oh, and don’t forget that you can also use other Tulip 3D Paints on other color lanterns. An yellow lantern with orange dripping paint would shout Halloween or how about a white lantern with red Tulip paint for a spooky casting glow!

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

A red couch moment

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black cat on sofa

I’ve been noticing that my cat loves sitting right in the middle of the couch lately. She is such a peculiar, unpredictable girl. She really has no rhyme or reason. I decided to take a quick pic of her tonight to show you her lounging in her spot.

A quick post tonight. Had some work to do and watched a little TV. Kelly Osbourne was really good on Dancing with the Stars. She has a natural talent.

Did want to share some Halloween inspiration that I love. Enjoy!

– Love all this orange, black,white, and grey compiled inspirational images on Twoila.com.

– Graphic goodness postcards on Artjunk. Feels my heart with Halloween joy. What a great recycled magazine idea!

– Lovely cupcake canvases on Catherine Holman’s blog.

– What a cute idea for a little girl’s jeans! Found in All Sweet’s Etsy shop.

– And a super cute cover for a lollipop… an Amigurumi bear in Halloween colors! from Amigurumi Kingdom’s Flickr Stream.

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

Until next day Swellions!

Alexa

P.S. If you haven’t checked out the crazy red dust storm photos in Sydney, you should. Totally bizarre!

What’s on my mind?

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surfaces

Halloween, of course! See all these surfaces and supplies? Well, I plan on doing something with them…the question is what?!? Ugh, I tend to get a lot of ideas in my head about what I want to do; however I want them to really be good and original! I see all kinds of ideas that I see that have already been done, but I really want to give my own original twist on what I see. I want it to be a new, fresh idea!

It is very hard to have an original idea these days! Everything is a spinoff or hybrid of something else you’ve seen. When I actually see a new idea or invention that is actually REALLY clever, I am super impressed. It’s so hard to stand out from the crowd and to make something totally unique! I hope to create a few projects this Halloween that are unique and different…things that will make you excited and things that you’ll actually want to do!

Just a little FYI…now that September is here, my posts may be a little shorter. I have a lot of accomplish in the next month and to successfully do that, I think the blog is going to have to suffer a bit. I hate that, but I don’t want to wear myself thin. It’s important that I accomplish what I set out to do for October!

In the next few days, I’m revamping and going to launch the plans for Terrorific Tuesdays, so keep your eyes peeled!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Join me for Terrorific Tuesdays!

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terrorific tuesday banner

If you haven’t already guessed I just love Halloween! I would call myself the queen, but I’ll settle for princess (I do have the tiara after all). And I have my own black cat too! That’s my cat Pixie in the banner above, the official mascot of Terrorific Tuesdays. She’s actually more of a scaredy cat than a scary cat!

If you have been reading my blog for a couple of months, you may have noticed that I’ve been posting a project each Tuesday and titling it my Terrorific Tuesday project. Well, I wanted to expand upon this idea and open it up to all my blog friends out on the “web”! I wanted to create a blog circle for October focusing on Halloween crafts and ideas. Tons of people are looking for clever ideas during this season in every shape and form and I wanted to create a positive, happy network of crafters for that!

You can choose as little or as much as you want to participate. I don’t want this to be something you stress over! Halloween is supposed to be FUN after all!

All I ask is that you please contact me and atleast let me know that you are interested so that I won’t be surprised last minute by someone I don’t know.

Guidelines:

1. Project can be a new or old idea. There will be no set theme from week to week. You can choose to include or not include instructions in your post, but I do ask that you post a photo and a brief description or explanation as to why you were inspired to make that particular project.

Consider one of the following ideas for your post:
– home dĂ©cor
– jewelry/accessories
– spooky food and drink recipes
– party and table decor
– clever costumes
– cards and paper crafts
– invitations
– outdoor dĂ©cor
– pumpkin carving/painting

2. I want to keep this simple for everyone. I don’t want there to have to be a set day of the week that you post your project. For example, if you want to post your project on the Friday prior to October 6th, that’s fine, just send me the URL to that post via direct message on twitter (swelldesigner) or e-mail (swelldesigner@yahoo.com). If you want to be included in the Terrorific Tuesday Halloween Crafts and Ideas Roundup for that week, the absolute deadline is 6pm (Eastern time) on each Monday of October 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th. I will send a reminder on Monday morning on Twitter. Please get it to me each Monday by 6pm, or expect to have your project left off the roundup until the following week.

On that Monday evening, I will compile all the links and create a cute photo mosaic of all the featured projects and write up copy for everyone to use on their blogs. I will e-mail you back late Monday evening this info for you to be able to post in your blogs on Tuesday.

As you probably already know, I like promotion, so I’ll try to stir up some interest on the “web” after our first post! Hopefully it will generate excitement, while also generating us some positive traffic.

Here’s a little button I made for you to be able to promote this fun roundup on your web site. Click on it and it will take you to the HTML code and the Hot link information that you can then copy and paste into your own web site.

terrorific web banner for promotion

I can’t wait to see what you guys “brew” up!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa