Decoupaged Pumpkin

 Halloween is always a fun holiday. I love answering the door and seeing the neighborhood kids in their costumes and having the chance to talk with neighbors that I only see a couple of times a year. It's also a busy holiday for me-baking and shipping Bat Cookies to Brittany and Michelle, decorating and sprucing up the front of the house. Today was warm and sunny so I spent the afternoon painting the trim around the door and windows. For a brief moment I thought about covering the areas that needed painting with craft store spider web material for a true haunted house look and going off into my studio to work on my decorations. I grabbed the paint and paint brush and headed out doors to paint. C'est la vie!

I'm really glad that I did the painting because it only took about 2 hours and I had the rest of the afternoon to work on my decorations (guilt-free). I really like the idea of craft pumpkins. They can be decorated and then stored away and re-used in the future. Rather than carve a real pumpkin to sit out on my porch, I decided to decorate craft pumpkins instead. I am working on the first of three decorated pumpkins, using Cricut and Modge Podge  I am posting this as I am working on it (the Modge Podge hasn't completely dried). As with all decoupage projects this will take several coats of Modge Podge over several days.

Directions for Decoupaged Craft Pumpkin:

Medium size Craft Pumpkin- available at Michaels
Cricut Happy Hauntings cartridge
Black, brown, orange, yellow and white card stock
K&Company Kelly Panacci Halloween Paper Pad- purple dotted card stock
EK Success circle cutter
Sizzix Sizzlets Bat die
Sizzix Big Kick or similar die cut machine
Modge Podge Clear Gloss
Colored pencils
Googly eyes
Modge Podge spray sealant
foam brush for applying Modge Podge

1.  Using the Cricut Happy Hauntings cartridge cut the Owl at 4 inches out of black card stock. Press the Owl and Shift keys to cut the branch out of brown card stock. Press the Layer 1 key to cut the eyes out of white card stock. Press Layer 1 and Shift to cut the feet and beak out of orange card stock. Finally, press Layer 2 to cut the stomach and upper part of the head out of purple dotted card stock. Assemble the owl. Accent the branch, feet, beak and stomach with colored pencils. Glue two small googly eyes to the Owl's face.

2.  Cut two sets of Bats (out black card stock) using the Sizzix.

3.  Use the circle cutter to cut a yellow circle for the moon.

4.  Glue the Owl to the front of the pumpkin with Modge Podge. Glue the moon slightly above the Owl's head on the upper right side. Glue a small Bat to the left edge of the moon. Randomly glue the rest of the Bats to the upper portion of the pumpkin.

5.  Apply a light coat of Modge Podge to the pumpkin and set aside to dry. Repeat the process until you have applied four coats. After the final coat of Modge Podge is dry spray the pumpkin with Modge Podge sealant.

Owl Birthday Card

One of the really nice things about owning the Cricut is having the ability to make personalized cards for any occasion. I like searching through my Cricut library to find the right image for my cards. I found this adorable little Owl on the Kate's ABC's cartridge and decided to build a card around him. When I create cards I very rarely have a clear vision of the finished project, I usually start with an image and go from there. I recently bought some pink Washi tape and wanted to use it in a project. I liked how it looked against the white card stock so I used the tape as the basis for my color scheme. Last night I had some new Memory Box dies lying on my drafting table and had cut the Melinda Corner image out of pink card stock. The corner was beautiful but didn't fit anywhere on this card, so I trimmed off the ends of the corner to use, under the edges of the mat, as accents.

Owl Card Directions:

Darice Washi Masking Tape-pink print
Recollections Faux Pearls
Yellow,light pink,medium pink, brown, green, and white cardstock
Yellow self stick crystals
Petaloo Floral Embelishments
Petaloo Premier Darjeeling Collection
DCWV All Dressed Up mat stack- black and pink dotted card stock
Martha Stewart Rose Leaf Paper Punch
Corner Rounder Paper Punch
Small black card stock oval
Cricut Kate's ABC's cartridge
Memory Box Melinda Corner Die
Tattered Angels GlimmerMist Diamond Dust
Zots and Foam Dots

1.   Print a birthday card on white card stock using a greeting card program. Leave enough room (on the front of the card) under the greeting for the card design. Score the card and fold in half.

2.   Cut a piece of pink Washi tape the length of the card and position it 1/8 inch from the folded edge.

3.   Load the Cricut cartridge into the Cricut machine and cut the Owl base layer at 2 inches out of yellow card stock.  Press the Shift and the Owl keys to cut the branch and eyes out of brown card stock. Press Layer 1 to cut the Owl body out of light pink card stock. Press the Shift, Layer 1 and the Owl keys to cut the leaves out of green card stock. Cut the eyes out of white card stock by pressing Layer 2 and the Owl keys. Press the Layer 2, Shift and Owl keys to cut the feet out of brown card stock.  Assemble the Owl.

4.  Cut a piece of black and pink dotted card stock approximately 5 1/4 inches high by 3 1/2 inches. Use the corner rounder paper punch to round the ends of the mat. Turn the mat over to the white side and place one Zot in the middle of the mat and one Zot in each of the 4 corners. Position the edges of the mat approximately 1 1/4 inches from the folded edge of the card and 2 1/4 inches from the top of  the card. Press into place.

5.   Cut a small oval out of black card stock, slightly larger than the Owl. I used a left over center from a die cut frame.  Put small foam dots on the back of the Owl, center on the oval and press into place.

6.    Cut the Melinda Corner out of medium pink card stock.  Cut the ends off of the corner. Place the ends under the upper left and lower right corners of the black and pink dotted mat and glue in place.

7.   Place a small pink flower from the Floral Embelishement at the bottom center of the mat.  Place a large pink flower from the Darjeeling Collection at the upper right corner of the card. Using the Martha Stewart rose leaf paper punch, punch three leaves out of green card stock. Pinch each leaf together lengthwise to make it curl upward. Glue the leaves under the large flower.

8.   Add small faux pearls around the oval black frame, and on the ends of the Melinda Corner. Add large faux pearls to the corners of the mat and to the Washi tape (at the top, middle and bottom). Add a small yellow crystal to the left of the oval frame and to the right of the Owl.

9.   Lightly spray the card with Glimmer Mist and set aside to dry.