What I am working on Saturday Oct 12 for Halloween

I am still having fun with one of my all time favorite holidays!  I have discovered lots of empty cans around my home and got to thinking about what do do with them!  I got tired of just throwing them out so I thought time to recycle some these cans.  This is my first try at creating my tin can critters, so I am thinking about calling them.  

This is Frankie and Abby! I took a small coffee can and primed it with gray prime paint and then began painting with various colors of greens, red and black.  

Then I used my scrapbook paper for a shirt and some pants.  I painted a little on the green plaid paper, making suspenders in brown and green buttons.  I hot glued some owl buttons and I took some the green plaid paper and made a neck bow for Frankie.  His nose is bake clay and purple in color for this hands, nose, I have also made some feet which I will be gluing on later with a strong glue.  Now onto Abby who is sitting on Frankie's head.  I took black yarn and gathered and knotted it to make my spider... yes Abby is a black spider!   Right now I am on hair pin spin! love hair pins they just make great legs! for creepy crawly things.  I glued the legs into the yarn and added some buttons for a red nose and decor on Abby, such as a candy corn button and black beads for eyes and a leaf, a touch of twine for her hair! which is now tied up.  I need to do a little more on Frankie I need to fix that one arm a more and add the feet but he was tons of fun to create and you all can do this!  All you need are acrylic paints, gray prime paint, scrape book decor, paper, poly bake clay, the color can be your choice, coffee can, yarn, buttons, scissors, hot glue, heavy duty glue like E6000  and a bit of twine! and let your imagination run wild!

Now onto the top picture, I found these little paper mache' houses in a craft store and fell in love with them!  They are much lighter than using the rocks when I made the rock cottages and I really can let my imagination run wild for Halloween cottages which this is what I have created here pictured.  I am using acrylic paints and sealing the house with an acrylic sealer.  The scene is all done free hand and no patterns are used.  What fun I am having this weekend! 

Teaching Me How to Hook a Rug with Yarn

Good afternoon from the Oregon coast! I hope you all are well!?

Well I finally went and did it, bought myself some different yarns and a rug hook along with fabric to hook the rug.  I am using a small rug hook, wool yarn along with acrylic yarn.  The pattern is my very own design a Halloween cat with some pumpkins and a small bat.

I did use Burlap for the rug and backed it with grip rubber liner that you might use in a cupboard for glasses.  I used a yellow acrylic yarn to do a binding stitch around the burlap and backing of the rug, this is my first time playing around with the yarns which I love rather than trying wool, which is a little more expensive.  I guess too that I just love all the various types of yarns and textures and even plan on hooking with ribbon, because I a little test with ribbon and found it works great!  Another thing I did after finishing the rug was to steam iron it and I think is an important thing to do when using the various yarns it seemed to level everything out and make the rug look a lot better.  Oh yes I almost forgot! before even beginning the rug I sewed a stitch around the burlap so that it did not unravel all the burlap.  You are also probably wondering how I hooked being that I forgot to take a picture of what I used to hold the rug, my hubby took a large bike wheel frame sanded it down and painted it and I have a small elastic tie down that loops perfectly around the bike wheel! I just love my hubby for creating my very own rug hooking loop! It's one of kind and works really well.

The winner is....

The winner is Barb! Congratulations!  Please send me your mailing address and Monday I will get the ghost and plate out to you!

http://barbsheartstrokes.blogspot.com/