Terrorific Tuesday: Halloween cup labels

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I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starting to really get pumped for fall, y’all. I love, love, love all things Halloween from decorations to party planning to Halloween food. I guess if you’ve been reading my blog, you already knew that!

Anyway, today, I wanted to present an idea that I came up with a couple of years ago for a Halloween Bridal Shower. Now I realize that it’s a bit early to have a Halloween party, but it is never too early to start planning and getting ideas and plans in order so you are ready for the big event!!! For this project, I wanted to have fun cup labels (they can also double as name badges if you’d rather do that) for the guests to get them talking and mingling. It turned out to be a hit and everyone had fun picking out their very own label. Here’s a quick photo I shot of the ones from that party (not my best photo ever, but it shows the basic idea)…

coaster and personalized cup

The ones I made for that party were done on the fly, but I decided to offer you, my swell blog readers, some cool designed ones that I made up this evening in Quark. Click on the picture to be directed to my flickr stream and to download it at it’s biggest size for best resolution. Then print it out on your home printer and cut. It’s easy as pumpkin pie!

halloween name tags-cup markers

halloween name tags - cup markers 2

I wanted them to reflect classic Halloween characters and movie horror classic icons. I think they are fun!

One of the other major reasons I’m getting psyched about Halloween is that this arrived today at the office:

halloween bhg mag

I even noticed our products being used in a photo article about having a kid’s halloween craft party (I designed the label on the Foam Paint bottle):

decoart foam paint

Whee! I also wanted to share today a few of my favorite Halloween site discoveries for you to check out…

This Christmas Traditions site is the most fabulous site if you love vintage Halloween decorations! It will make your mouth water!

My friend Lorilyn directed me to this fabulous site called Fancy Flours. There are so many ideas for making funky Halloween sweets and treats! Check it out!

Over at DecoArt, we are gearing up for a great season of crafting with great projects like these (click on the title above the photo to go to the project page)…

Bone Appetit Tray
Bone Appetit Tray

Celebrate Halloween Frame using Laurie Speltz’s Instant ImagesCelebrate Halloween Frame

Egg-Shaped Mummy
egg-shaped mummy

I’ll try to feature atleast one project each week now until Halloween from the DecoArt site on here. The DecoArt designers are the best and do such a great job coming up with innovative ideas!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

All content/photos of cup labels copyright, © Alexa L. Westerfield, 2008

5 sites o’ the moment that I just love!

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Thought I would do a fun list of sorts today of 5 sites you really need to check out!

Craft Critique
I’ve been visiting this great blog called Craft Critique. They seem to really be on top of stuff on there…new products and whatnot. They also do thorough research on all types of craft products, not just scrapbooking stuff. It’s a great resourceful site.

Betsey Johnson
OK, so I perused around on Betsey Johnson’s site today. I love her jewelry so much. I remember first hearing about her back in middle school, when she had a “Get a cool look for under $50 at K-mart” featured in Seventeen. I always loved what she did with that (I remember her teenage daughter Lulu was always the model). Anyway, I don’t know why I haven’t been visiting this site more often, in fact. If you know of any other quirky designers that is in this vain, please let me know. I’m not the most fashionable of people (I mean I keep up on some stuff, but it’s hard not being immersed in that world. Must.sign.up.for.more.fashion.feeds.

Your Face Blog
I love this fun illustration site called Your Face. Artist Damien Weighill does some really original and fun drawings with basic photographs that people send in. I actually sent him mine, but I doubt he will ever get to it. I’m sure he gets hundreds of requests daily and has to weed through them to find just the right one to draw. He has the craziest, most off the wall ideas. I love the randomness.

Culture Soak Blog
I found this great Bluegrass region blog called Culture Soak. It’s really nicely designed and doesn’t fixate itself totally on Lexington, but it also deals with cool design, photography, and art all over the world. I love posts like this lego photo reenactment, Polaroid Mirror, and one that led me to this bad design police link Hilarious!

Marketplace article…”Knit 1, Pearl 2, Point & Click”
Heard today on Marketplace this story about the decline knitting shops that were booming just 2-3 years ago. Considering that I don’t knit and haven’t visited a shop or talked to a knitter in depth, I had no clue as to what was going on with this industry and the downturn of the popularity of local knitting shops. Looks like more people are going online or turning to other venues for their supplies. If you are a crafty pro, you should def. check out this article. Very insightful.

I hope you guys have a chance to check out atleast one of them to be inspired and possibly learn something new! Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

My lame blog attempt turns out halfway decent afterall!

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I apologize in advance for the next few lame-ola paragraphs I’m about to spew.

OK. I admit it, I struggle with the whole blog thing. I want to come up with thes incredibly witty, thoughtful, inspiring blog entries, but usually, I just sit in front of my computer for an hour trying to think of a topic, experience, or area of interest that I think others will find inspiring. As Brit Brit would say, “It’s hard, y’all”.

So, like back in Ms. Johnson’s 5th/6th split class, I wish when I couldn’t find a blogworthy topic, I could just type in…”I am writing in my blog, I am writing in my blog, etc., etc.”. Actually, in her class you had to write…”I am writing in my journal, etc.”, but you get the point.

So today, I’m just going to post some fabulous web sites I’ve visited over the past couple of days. Maybe you will find them interesting, maybe you won’t, but I did blog something and something has to be said for that, right?

Noah K. Everyday is a fascinating look at this guy Noah Kalina. I know nothing about him, other than the fact that he taken a photo of himself everyday for the past 7 years or so. Check out his youtube video where he ages over the course of 6 years. Just intoxicating, fascinating, and kinda haunting (maybe it’s just the music, but I don’t think so).

I came upon this cool shop called Atypyk filled with all kinds of fun goodies. I lurve really humorous gifts as well as things that graphically speak to me (after all, I’m a graphic designer). This Miss World t-shirt spoke to me (SO FUN!), as well as these Techy adhesive Post-it knockoffs

There’s some fabulous gift ideas to be found at Hostess with the Mostess™ This blog design is so much fun (I’m a sucker for color, always have been, oh and a little bit of girly flair). I was especially fond of their product suggestions like these Mod Ornaments, Marilyn mug set (to match my Marilyn glasses, and these Rainbowtastic plate collections.

Lastly, if you want a little shock to start or end your day, check out this flickr photoset of Lenora Claire’s Golden Gals Gone Wild gallery show. But enter at your own risk, some of the photos are pretty shocktastic. You will never think of Bea Arthur or Betty White (who made a funny cameo on last night’s Ugly Betty, BTW) in the same light again!