Category: Crafts

The Munsters Halloween Costumes

10/31/2016

Happy Halloween to all!
I hope you all had a fun, and a safe Halloween weekend, and a great actual Halloween today! If you're looking for more Halloween fun, you can check out all of my Halloween posts today, since you probably won't for another year!
So who's dressed up for work today? Well I'm not, because my Monday job is this blog, and I'm sitting at home in my pajamas :)
If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you'll probably have seen me and the husband's Halloween costumes this year, they were a huge hit! Here's some pictures of us...

We dressed up as Lily and Herman Munster, from the 1960's tv show, The Munsters.
If you've never watched it, we highly recommend it! It is now on Netflix, so there's no excuse to not watch it!

Here are some more pictures, just for fun's sake!

We went with the black and white version, since that's the version you see on the show, since it is in black and white!

Here's how I made my dress! I bought this dress (I think it was an old wedding dress) from Salvation Army, and this sheer blouse also from Salvation Army. I cut the sleeves from the blouse and attached them to the dress, then cut up the rest of the blouse, to make the "wings" that you see hanging from the sleeves. I had some black fabric laying around (any self respecting crafty lady does!), so I cut it up and sewed it to the dress, and voila! This gorgeous Lily Munster dress! I already had the bat necklace (because why wouldn't I).
Nick's costume was pretty easy. He already had the black pants, and we bought the sweater and jacket from Salvation Army (of course!). His head is a plastic piece that we bought from a local Halloween store, that he attached with latex.

Happy Halloween loves!!!

Peace Love and The Munsters
Jess <3

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DIY Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett Couples Halloween Costume

10/3/2016

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DIY Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett Couples Halloween Costume

Happy Halloween you guys! I hope you've been enjoying the Halloween theme going on here, all over my Instagram, and over at my Etsy Shop also! Just in case you missed it, last week I posted a guest post from The Haunted Housewife about how to make your own Halloween inspired hair candies. Likewise, she featured my post, 7 ways to make your home Halloween ready on her blog!
I will be continuing the Halloween madness today, with this post about how to do Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett hair, makeup, and outfits, for your couples Halloween costume this year!

Makeup
We're going to start with the makeup! Here is a tutorial I did, about how to do both Sweeney Todd, and Mrs. Lovett makeup.

The finished makeup for Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett!
And now on to the hair, because let's face it, the hair basically makes Sweeney Todd!

Sweeney Todd Hair
We were lucky, because Nick's hair was just perfect for Sweeney Todd hair. And yes, that is his real hair! His hair is super thick and wavy naturally, so we didn't have to do a lot to it. Just teased it a bit, until it sat exactly so. We pinned the top part back, so it wouldn't fall over. If your man's hair isn't thick and wavy enough, curl it, and do some serious teasing. We also bleached a section of his hair, so he actually had the blonde strip in his hair. He loved it and actually kept it for almost a year!

Mrs. Lovett Hair
My hair also worked pretty good for Mrs. Lovett hair. It was a little bit longer than hers, but I didn't sweat it.
The night before, I put my hair in really tight curlers. You want tight curls. The next morning after taking the curlers out, I positioned my hair into two high ponytails. Position them a little lower than the height I have them. Once both ponytails are in place, get a large hair clip, and flip the ponytail over the top of your head, then clip it at the base and over a bit, so the ponytail will fall over the clip, and it will cover the ponytail holder, and looks like the above hair. Then you are going to tease your ponytails like crazy. Mrs. Lovett has crazy curly hair. Once it's teased to perfection, hairspray to hold. If you have red hair, lucky you! You're done. If not, you need a red spray in color. These are very easy to find during Halloween.

I used this stuff from Hot Topic for my hair, and i would never use it again, and never recommend anyone to use it! Ever! The color turned out fine, as spray in colors go, but this stuff was a complete disaster. It got onto everything. I washed my hair three times and it still wouldn't come out, so I had to wash it a couple times with dish soap! Then, my shower had a red tint to it for weeks, until I finally had to bleach it to get it off! It stained the seat in my car, my bathroom counter, and the shirt my husband wore! Disaster! *Ok, end rant!*

The clothing
I admit it, I thought the clothing would be very hard to find, but it turned out to be so simple! It really just takes some imagination. I took some time studying various outfits worn by both Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, and formulated what I thought would be great costumes for us. We used a couple things we already owned, and found the rest at the Salvation Army during their 50% off Wednesday. You can't get cheaper Halloween costumes!

Sweeney Todd Outfit
Nick's Sweeney Todd outfit was beyond simple. He started with a white t-shirt he already owned, that looks like it has blood splatters all over the neck (I believe he got it at Hot Topic a long time ago), it was perfect. Over that, he wore this long sleeve, collared, white button-up that we got at Salvation Army for a couple dollars. You want it to be a little baggier, especially over the arms. Over that, he wore a really good-looking brownish/greyish vest that we also found at Salvation army for a couple dollars. He still has this vest because it's so nice! Finishing up his look, he wore a pair of black pin-striped dress pants that we got at (you guessed it) Salvation Army, for (you guessed it) a couple dollars!

Mrs. Lovett Outfit
Mrs. Lovett's costume is a bit trickier, but just as do-able as Sweeney Todd's. In the movie she has a couple different outfits, so I kept those in my mind when we went to the Salvation Army and found exactly what I needed to make my own version of all her outfits. The skirt and the corset are the focal points of her outfit, so I was so glad to find this perfect skirt at the Salvation Army. It was the perfect color, design, and length.

I found this great top, complete with ruffles, at the Salvation Army, and cut the top off, because I didn't want the bottom part to bunch under the corset.

I then layered a black corset I already owned (and an extreme push-up bra!) over top of the long sleeved shirt.

And to complete my look, I couldn't believe my luck when I found these shoes at The Salvation Army! How perfect are they?!

Oh, and we found this straight razor at Sally's Beauty Supply. It added a little something don't ya think!

What are you going to be for Halloween this year?!

Peace Love and Sweeney Todd
Jess <3

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Guest Post; DIY Haunted Hair Candy

9/26/2016

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"Behold, DIY haunted hair candy for those of us that adore that spooky-chic look all year round."
Hello everyone! Today I am very excited to be teaming up with my blogging friend Samberlina Rodriguez, over at The Haunted Housewife! She's super cool, and I absolutely love her blog, which is full of Halloween inspiration all year round! You can find out more about her at the bottom of the post, but for now, let's get to crafting!

"As much as I love Halloween, the hair goodies and jewelry that you find during peak season are plastic, and not meant to last more than one night. I’m also not a fan of the color orange, especially right next to purple and black. Am I the only one? Anyway, moving on."

What You'll Need
Affiliate links, please view the disclosure policy!

-hot glue gun (or soldering iron if you like to live on the edge. We’re playing with metals on metals today, so I think it could work. Solder at your own risk!)

For the bat headband:

-headband blanks, $4 for 12 of them.
-bat charm, $2.85 each.

For the spider pin:

-bobby pin blanks, $5.58 for 10 of them
-spider charm"

What You'll Do

"This tutorial is incredibly simple, and is as easy as gluing your charm onto your blanks. Take your headband blank (or blanks), the ones I’ve chosen came in a pack of 12 from amazon. For the bat ornament, you’ll need to curve it to match the headband’s curvature. If it’s not curved enough, it will likely pop off after you glue it in place. Soldering ensures it’s there to stay forever, but solder at your own risk! Today, I prefer to glue it and see how that works out for the long haul. Glue your headband to the bat, you’re done! It took me a couple tries to get it right. Be patient! When you’ve succeeded, you’ve got a beautiful bat headband (or several bat headbands) to wear all year round!"

"How epic is this headband? Comes out to $3.18 each!!!"

"Now for the spider pin, you need to pick up some bobby pin blanks that have an area for you to glue your spider on to. These I found on amazon as well and were an add-on to my order and super cheap."

"Then, I picked my favorite spider charm from a seller on Etsy, and that’s when the magic happened. Simply glue and go! The spider pins come out to an awesome $4.51 each. They cost more than the headband, but this spider is my favorite and worth the extra cost, in my opinion."

"THESE ARE SERIOUSLY SO EASY AND AWESOME. YOU COULD MAKE THESE TO GIVE OUT TO YOUR FRIENDS WITH THE SAME STYLE, OR EVEN SELL THEM. I’VE SEEN THESE HEADBANDS GO TO $25 ON ETSY, WHICH IS OUTRAGEOUS IF YOU’RE A CHEAPSKATE LIKE I AM. I COULD MAKE NEARLY 8 OF THEM FOR THAT PRICE! ENJOY!"

Yay! Wasn't that great?! Thank you so much Samberlina, for that great post! You can read her original post here.

And today over on The Haunted Housewife, she will be posting a guest post from me, called "7 Ways to Make Your Home Halloween Ready". Go check it out!

"Samberlina Rodriguez is the creep behind The Haunted Housewife (http://www.thehauntedhousewife.com); a blog dedicated to the strange and unusual with a feminine twist. When she isn't haunting her humble abode, she's busy obsessing over beauty products, out chasing kitties, or making a mess with glitter. You can find her on Instagram, @hauntedhousewife."

Peace Love and Haunted Hair Candy
Jess <3

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How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party!

6/27/2016

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This year my wonderful mother turned 60 years old! Since 60 is a pretty special milestone, I wanted to do something extra awesome for her, so she would remember it for the rest of her life. We are both obsessed with the t.v show "Reign", which is a show about kings and queens, and castles, and the like, so I decided to make her "Queen for a day!"
Here are pictures from our Medieval themed party, with some D.I.Y that you can steal for your very own medieval themed party!

First things first, you gotta set the scene! I absolutely love themed things, and to pull off a themed thing successfully (whether it be a wedding, room decor, an outfit, or a party), people must know immediately, what the theme is! As soon as people enter the room, they should think that they are in a castle! We took it a step further, and made it so as soon as people pulled into the driveway, they knew they were about to enter a castle! We did that with this incredible drawbridge that my husband made out of some scrap wood from his work! Here's how we did it!

My wonderfully crafty husband just got some scrap wood from work, picked up a saw, and cut a person-sized door our of the wood! Keep the door so you can lay it on the ground, and connect some chains to it, to make it look like a draw bridge!

The drawbridge chains are just black construction paper cut into strips, then linked and taped together. You know how you used to make paper chains in school! For these, just make sure the strips are wide, so it looks like thick chains.

Nick picked up cans of black and grey spray paint for just a couple bucks each, and spray painted it to look like blocks.

We also added some "torches" to either side of the gate.
These torches are super simple to make, and look so good! We made a bunch and also used them inside the house.

These torches are super simple to make! All you need is; black construction paper, red and yellow tissue paper (we got these at Dollar Tree for only a dollar each), and scotch tape and scissors!

What to do; Cut one black piece of construction paper into a square, so you can roll it into an ice cream cone looking tube, then tape. The top should be a large hole, with the bottom coming to a point, just like an ice cream cone! Then take both colors of tissue paper, and shove them into the top hole, fanning them out to look like a flame. You can also place battery operated tea lights on top of the flames, to make it light up!
Now for the inside of the house!

Those walls!
The walls were one of the most important elements of the decoration, because that's what hid our modern day dining room walls, and turned it into an ancient castle! It even helped hide the living room and the kitchen.

We bought a roll of grey plastic table cloth from Party City, and me and my sister used permanent markers to draw blocks. We just rolled out the tablecloth and drew yards upon yards of this, so we could make sure every wall was covered. When it came time to decorate, we just measured out the lengths horizontally, cut the rolls, and taped them to the walls with heavy duty tape!

We cut a couple pieces of the table cloth and hung it vertically from the ceiling to hide the living room. We also taped purple and gold plastic tablecloths to the ceiling, and tied it with lace to act as "curtains".

Here are some more of the torches we made! Taped to the interior of the castle walls.

Lots of pearls (from our wedding. You can buy strands of them from Oriental Trade or JoAnn Fabrics), candles, lace (also from our wedding), fake coins and jewels (bought from Dollar Tree for only $1.00 each)! Also, mounds of moss (bought from Dollar Tree!), gold vases (these were from my cousin's wedding. She just spray painted old vases from thrift stores), and golden chalices!

Golden chalices!
These goblets added great medieval flair! Plus, we made enough for everyone at the party, so everyone got to drink in medieval style, and! Had a great party favor to take home with them!

We went to the Salvation Army and bought glass goblets for $.25 each. They were all matching except for my mom's, which was huge and very Queenly!

Nick took the glasses outside and spray painted them to perfection with gold spray paint.

After the goblets dried, I got to work with my hot glue gun, gluing "gems" (we got a bag for $1.00 in the craft section of dollar tree!) onto them!

The results of these under $.50 each handmade goblets? Royal, and super fun! Check out how much fun everyone was having with theirs (ok it probably helped that they were filled with booze!)!

Well I guess this brings us to the costumes!

Since I wanted my Mom to feel like the Queen she is, I rented her this stunning Queen dress, complete with this gorgeous tiara! I rented it from an amazing party store in the Canton/Akron area, Akron Design and Costume. This place is the coolest costume store I have ever seen! And it's open year round!
I also gave her beautiful earrings and a necklace, from Eden.

I also bought this Knight's armor vest from Akron Design and Costume for only seven bucks, and forced my dad to wear it for a little bit!

Those great vests and jester hats you see being worn by everyone? I made them so everybody could feel involved with the theme! I was so glad I made these, because it was a blast seeing everyone get dressed up, and get involved in the theme! Here's how to make your own jester hats and vests, for less than $5 for everything!

Let's start with the vests!

At the Salvation Army (love that store!) I purchased a large red tablecloth, and a large piece of yellow fabric, for only two dollars each.
It's important to get two different colors of fabric, so you can make the crosses on the vests.
All you need to do is; lay the fabrics out on the floor. Cut the fabric into strips. Make the strips wide enough to go from shoulder to shoulder. You can make them as long or short as you wish. The yellow ones are shorter because they were for the girls, and plus the fabric was shorter. Then measure from top to bottom, and side to side, to get to the exact center of the vest. That is where you cut the neck hole! Just fold it in half, and cut a half circle to make it even. After you have done this to all of the available fabric (except for a couple small strips), it's time to make the crosses!

Cut out crosses from each color of fabric, and hot glue (it's faster than sewing!) it to the opposite colored vest!

The crosses make such a difference, and really make it look like a knights vest!

And now for the Jester Hats!

All you need is green, yellow, and purple construction paper (we just bought a large multi-colored pack at JoAnn Fabrics and used that for all construction paper needs!), and scissors and scotch tape!

Cut the different colors into shapes shown above. The long yellow strips are for the band. You will need two strips per hat. The green and purple triangles are for the hanging pieces. They do not need to be pointy at the top, because the yellow circles will be taped onto the tops of them. You will need two green and two purple for each hat. You will need four yellow circles per hat.
Tape two yellow pieces together for the band. You can measure your head for reference. I made varying sizes of hats. Then alternately tape the purple and green pieces to the inside of the yellow band. Add the yellow circles to the top. Bend the green and purple pieces slightly, to make them bounce around. They look so cute!

Now that your home and your guests all look like they belong in Medieval times, what are you going to do to keep everyone occupied?
Since my mom's birthday was in February and it was pretty cold, we didn't want to do a lot of things outside. So here's what we did for entertainment!

We took pictures of everyone!
I cut the center out of a large poster board that I got for a dollar at Dollar Tree, decorated it, and wrote the occasion on it (Ellen's 60th!). When people came in, and after they put costumes on, we took a picture of them holding the "frame". It was a fun way to get pictures of everyone that came, and turned out super cute!

The giant mace pinata!
This was also my husband's idea, and he made it perfectly!

He first blew up a giant balloon we got at Party City, and then mod podged pieces of scrap paper over it. He did one layer, leaving a small space empty at the bottom of the balloon.

While we left the first layer of paper mache to dry, we made these little spikes you see here. We made them by cutting out, rolling, and taping together, cones of black construction paper. Leaving a small flap of paper to tape onto the balloon. Once all spikes were attached, Nick did a second layer of paper mache, going over the flaps. Once that layer of paper mache is dry, it's now time to pop the balloon, from the small empty space you left at the bottom. Then take it outside and spray paint it black.

We filled the pinata with cut up pieces of tissue paper (leftover from the torch flames), and plenty of candy and fake gold coins.

We also had jousting tournaments to keep everyone amused!
We got these great little swords at Party City, and everyone had such a blast fighting with them!

Other activities included; dancing to medieval music (just look it up on youtube!), and playing Taboo (cuz Taboo is just awesome!).

Here are more photos of the party.
"Jewels" for everyone. We got them at Dollar Tree.

To make this throne, we just wrapped my silk bed sheet around an armchair.

Hahaha my Dad is the greatest.

I hope you enjoyed looking at our Medieval Party Pictures! We sure had a blast doing it, and so will you!

Peace Love and Medieval Times
Jess <3

Decoupage Notebook Craft Tutorial!

12/21/2015

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Welcome dear friends!
I truly hope that today you are not stressed, frazzled, or in any way Grinch-like because of Christmas!
So today I have for you, a fun little project that you can do to take your mind off of things, and relax.
These decoupage notebooks are super easy to make, take almost not time at all, and do not require a ton of expensive, weird craft supplies! Do I have your attention yet? No? Well, they also make great last minute (very inexpensive) gifts, that basically tell everyone that you are a crafting goddess, who makes her own gifts!!!
How about now?!

What You Need;
-A notebook. Big, small, any kind works, I like spiral notebooks.
-Mod Podge, or any other kind of decoupage goo.
-A spongy brush. I got mine at JoAnn Fabrics.
-Scissors.
-An old book or magazine, pictures, lace, or anything that you want to collage onto the front of a notebook! If you're making this for a gift, try to get things that the person likes! For example, I made a Beatles notebook, a Bob Marley notebook, and a James Dean notebook. These would be great gifts to people who love The Beatles, Bob Marley, or James Dean! You can even use pictures of you and the person you're gifting it to!

What to Do;
First you will need to plot out the desired look for your notebook.
Cut out pages and pictures, and arrange them on the notebook until it looks totally awesome!

Some decoupage inspiration!

Next, squirt a large pile of your decoupage goo onto a piece of cardboard, or an old magazine. Coat your brush in it, and completely cover the back of your paper or picture.
Carefully lay the paper onto the notebook, and flatten it out. Then put another layer of goo, on the top of the paper or picture.
Do this for all the papers, until your notebook is covered.

If you want to add lace to your notebook, make a large pile of goo, then make sure your lace is completely saturated with it. Like, completely! Then place it on your notebook however you want, and since your fingers and hands are already covered in goo, use your fingers to put more goo as needed on the lace, and make sure it's secured to the notebook!

Let your diy decoupage notebook dry, and then you have a one of a kind kick butt notebook that you made all yourself! Whoop whoop!
Here are some of the notebooks I've made!

I love both of these notebooks! The first one is my 50's Housewife notebook, and the second my "The Beatles are Coming!" notebook. You can actually purchase the Beatles notebook in my Etsy Shop!

Some more adorable Japanese notebooks!

Now go get your craft on!

Peace Love and Decoupage
Jess <3

The Munsters Halloween Costumes

DIY Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett Couples Halloween Costume

Guest Post; DIY Haunted Hair Candy

How to Throw a Medieval Themed Party!

Decoupage Notebook Craft Tutorial!

I'm Jessica!

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