Marbled Blacklight Pumpkin DIY

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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.

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

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65+ Halloween Projects & Ideas from The Swell Life

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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5 totally random and cool things

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– Had dinner with my Etsy team, Crafty Chica, and Pattie Wack last night. We talked for hours about any and everything and by everything I mean everything crafty. Lots of great ideas and insight was shared. Truly awesome and I know everyone had a great, great time 🙂 At one point, we got shooshed by another patron at Red Robin. Come on! It’s Red Robin! Anyway, I think I was responsible for part of that. Sometimes I talk WAY TO LOUD. A lot of times my friends have to tell me to quiet down. I don’t realize how loud I’m talking!

– Really love this post by Elsie Flannigan and her 70’s doe-eyed children artwork. This girl is on the trends. Love it (esp. the buttons in the hair illustration)

– Wanna see where I work? Well, Cathy of California features the very colorful facade of the building I work in on her blog. Check it out here and here and here. A must see!

– OK, so I can’t say the last two designers on Project Runway have had awesome outfits, but I feel they keep kicking off designers who have strong conceptual designs. I feel this is necessary on this show to keep it fresh and different. Is that just me. Come on Heidi…sometimes those people can come up with some really COOL bizarro stuff that’s also beautiful if you give them the chance.

– I just did a list of finished projects (not yet photographed) for my 24 craft projects in 24 hours. I have 6 finished! I really could add 2 or 3 more into that mix that I’m not quite sure about and may feature them if I run out of time, but I’m chugging along. I think I’m doing well so far. I’m enjoying making the projects. It’s hard to come up with all the ideas (well, ok, not THAT hard), but I’m trying to come up with a variety that covers all the Halloween bases from jewelry to costumes to home decor to party planning. I have a lot of ideas I’m planning on sharing! I can’t believe I’m going to keep them secret for close to a month. It’s so unlike me not to share (though, I will say, I can keep secrets if I’m asked to, I really can, I just get exciting sharing my projects). Oh, if you have anything you would like to see, please do share. I will try to incorporate any suggestions you have into my planning!

Well, off to bed. It’s late and I don’t feel so great! Well, no not really. I feel fine. Just tired and need to get some rest!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

A Halloween food flop!

Hello all. THere’s a lot of projects I’ve been doing on here that have turned out pretty successful, but for every successful project, there’s a disastrous one waiting in the wings…case in point, this:

caramel apples

Last year, when I made these apples, I envisioned them to be beautiful and perfect, with colorful sprinkles, nuts, and chocolate chips. I actually envisioned them to look very much like these beauties from Country Living:

caramel apples from country living

You can actually find the recipe for these here

Mine didn’t turn out at all and they embarrassed me at my party. I actually didn’t finish wrapping them with ribbon around the sticks, cause they weren’t the perfect ones that I had hoped for. Well, for starters, I didn’t really follow the recipe they had given and I did it my own way. I dipped them too soon or something. Does anyone have the pointers, cause I sure need some help.

It is nice to know that some people have good results. For example, check these out that Velvet Strawberries made. Her version is just as pretty as the original, if not more (she has a beautiful blog, does she not?)

I’m honestly not a very good 3-dimensional artist other than jewelry work, I always struggled with it in college. I think that I usually pull it together in the end, but it’s not ever exactly what I envisioned it to be. I think that is why I struggle more with the food crafts. Someone told me the crescent roll wrapped mummies that I made for a party a couple of years back were kinda scary and unappetizing. I really did my best. That darn mustard just came out to big for the eyes and details. It messed the whole look up!

What kind of Halloween disasters have you faced? I’d be curious to know.

Until next time Swellions