Weekend Work: October/Halloween craftiness

The months of October, November and December are my absolute favorites of the year. I get a big kick out of three solid months with big holidays at the end of them. So. I love fall. I love crafting in fall. I love holidays. I love crafting in the holidays. Pumpkins and harvest and leaves and holly berries and ever-greenery and gift-giving occasions inspire me. And the food. Can’t forget the food. So this here project represents just the introductory salvo into what I have planned.

Last week I came upon a project via the Craftzine from the Frugal Law Student’s sister Shannon for making a countdown-to-Halloween calendar. It’s taken from a 2006 Pottery Barn design (follow the Frugal Law Student link to see those versions and to find directions). Both the zine and the sister claim this calendar is for kids who are excited for Halloween. No no no. Adults are also excited by this holiday, and some of us think we don’t have can never have too many Halloween decorations. Besides, it reminds me of Advent calendars, and I always loved Advent calendars.

And honestly, folks, what’s better than treating yourself every day just because it’s another day? What’s better than having something fun to look forward to when it’s all done?

So here’s my rendition of the October/Halloween calendar with its little pockets stuffed with candy (more photos on Flickr).  I changed it from the directions some, which I talk about below.  Each individual pocket is part of a scene or is decorated in some way.  I started running out of ideas after a while.  Hence we have three ghosts.  Some shapes I thought of - like Dracula - were impossible because I cut all of these shapes out freehand, and my skills go only so far.  There are fangs on day 26, does that count?

Jeff and I each have favorites for the days. Mine is the witch legs on the 8th, and Jeff likes the mummy on the 19th. I made each of the little square pockets and the backing from felt.  The backing is actually 2 pieces of felt for extra stability, sewn together where the ribbon edging is.  The pattern called for orange rick-rack for edging, but I found some shiny ribbon with spiders and spider webs on it and used that instead.  I also chose to use pinking shears to edge the pockets because I liked the way it looked.

I’m fond of Husband Jeff’s eyeball monster with green tentacles, and of the full moon.  I decided to mark the year I made it by accurately representing the full moon on the 25th and the quarter moon on the 4th.

The calendar is a little bigger than what’s called for - about 4 feet by 2 feet.  Each square is 3.5″ x 4″.  It took a yard and a half of black felt, about a yard of orange and then thin sheets of orange, lime green, purple, yellow and black foam.  I also used sheets of really stiff sticky-back white and orange felt.  The craft stores sell sticky-back foam sheets for a few cents more, but I’ve found that regular foam and felt glue holds a lot better.  I do want this to last!

Other favorites are the spider & web and the two kitties I put on here.  I often double-layered the materials for added interest, and made liberal use of ribbon, sticky eyeballs, pre-cut sticky-back foam letters, sharpie markers in black and silver and puff paint in black.  Oh - and lots and lots of felt glue.  The whole thing wasn’t very expensive for all the supplies.

And here’s a couple more I think most of the Halloween tropes are represented. As mentioned, I can’t cut out vampires, and I also can’t cut out felt doggies howling at the moon.  But I wanted to.  The one thing left that I will be doing through October is stitching the little pockets to the felt.  This would never have gotten done if I’d tried to do that first.  I’m not that patient.  So I’m doing one a day as I eat my candy.  Yum.

Hope you enjoyed!