Spirit Clay

Saturday, October 6, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 7 - Eyeball Ornaments

It's day 7 of Smeared and Smudged Forum's 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop! Yea!! This has been so much fun, hopping and commenting AND I thank everyone for the awesome comments you've give me!
Below are all the fabulous bloggers:

Terra,Tori,Kristy,Kapree,Alison,Christine,Kelli,Windy,Susan,Alex,Monique,Jane,Sugar,Black Dragon,Lisa,Shell,Jean,Julia,Jennifer,Loren,Christy,Vee,Lady Brayton,Lindsay,Little Black Kitten,Celeste,Leigh,Pam,Donna,Valerie,Helen,Sharon,Lisa,Karen,Carolyn,Pam

Eeek! Eyeballs are big this year! Literally! I bought small ornaments after Christmas last year. They were hot pink and I just knew I needed them for a future project and here it is!
Materials:
Ornaments - round and smooth in various sizes
Acrylic paint - lime green, aqua and orange
Felt tip pens - lime green, pale blue, yellow and black
Paint brushes - round

	Paint a large white circle in white and allow to dry.Paint a base iris color and allow to dry.

	Using markers, vary the solid color with outlines and stripes.

	Outline the white and the iris color with black marker.

	Using at least on more color, blend the black outlines and and touch up the iris color to add depth.Add one or two dots of white paint for highlights.
	Keep and EYE out for ornaments on sale this year!

Friday, October 5, 2012

Reverse Painted Pumpkin Plate

Reverse Painted Plate by Candace Jedrowicz

It's day 6 of Smeared and Smudged Forum's 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop! This has been so much fun, hopping and commenting AND I thank everyone for the awesome comments you've give me!
Below are all the fabulous bloggers:

Last year C2C's Tiffany Windsor shared a Christmas Ornament Reverse Painted Plate and Candace J fell in love with it! In Candace's mind that technique could lead to fabulous possibilities! First stop: Halloween! Materials: Glass Plate Glass Paints - Purple, black, orange, turquoise and green Black puffy paint

	Choose a design you like and tape it face down on the front of the place.

	Turn the plate over and trace the outline of your image with the black puffy paint.I added a freehand design around the edge. You're welcome to use it if you like. Allow to dry.

	Pain in the sections with the glass paints.If you plan to do any shading or highlighting, you'll want to do that first. I added yellow to the orange for highlights and darkened the orange for shading. You don't have to be precise painting, if you paint over the puffy paint lines, it won't show. You may need three or more coats to make the colors opaque.

	Paint black on the back of the plate after the colors have dried. It gives it a finished look.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 5 - Candy Corn Beads

It's Day 5 of The Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop!
Below are all the fabulous bloggers:

I love October. The colors and smells of autumn bring my senses to life. I love to bury my nose in the first bag of candy corn I buy in October. I open it with relish and pour it into a clear glass candy jar. That's when it's fall to me! Three years ago I went to Italy with three friends to take polymer clay jewelry classes with Louise Fisher Cozzi and Donna Kato. We had so much fun! Louise taught us how to achieve an amazing technique to give polymer clay layers of color. She uses translucent polymer clay and colors it with oil paint. After it's cured, she adds more oil paint on top of that. After that's dry, she uses color pencils to give the piece another layer of fabulous color.

Here I've started conditioning translucent polymer clay. After the clay is fairly soft you can add a tiny bit of oil paint. An inexpensive oil paint is fine.

Continue to condition until the clay is a uniform color. It helps to have a piece of the candy corn to look at while you're tinting the clay.
Be sure to add only a dab of paint each time, and do the yellow before the orange. It's okay to get yellow paint on your orange clay, but not okay to get orange paint on your yellow clay.
The orange roll will be the largest, the yellow is half as large as the orange and the white roll is half as large as the yellow.
Lay the rolls side by side and slice evenly.
Begin by rolling the white piece into a cone, the orange piece an egg shape and the yellow piece into a slightly flattened oval.
Gently roll the pieces until the all edges touch and it looks like a continuous cone shape.
Flatten the cone shape slightly. It's a good idea to have that candy corn to look at for dimension.

For the bracelet beads, bend a wire or paper clip to mark where the holes will be.
I made mine to mark both holes just inside the orange part. For earring beads, you might want to make a vertical hole through the candy corn.
Remember to hold the clay very gently as you pierce it, so you don't squish it.
Bake the clay as directed on the package.
When making a bracelet, I line my beads up against a ruler to make it seven inches long.
The length you use depends on who the bracelet is for. I wanted this bracelet to look full, so I used three strings in each bead hole and strung smallish beads.
Larger beads would make it look chunky, if that's your preference.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 4 - Bat Barrette

It's day 4 of Smeared and Smudged Forum's 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop!

Below are all the fabulous bloggers:

Okay, it's not so spooky but it is sparkly! And it's super easy to make, too! This was inspired by Tiffany Windsor's Felted Floral Headband from last week's show. Grab some felt and craft foam and get to makin'!
Materials:
Aleene's Fabric Fusion Peel and Stick Sheets Aleene's Super Gel Glue
Felt
Black craft foam
Inka Gold orange metallic paste
Scissors Barrette base
Bat Template - the 1st click takes you to where I work, click again on the small print bat template to open it

	Cut 4 different size circles of felt the largest of which will need to be 1/2' wider than the barrette base. Cut from the outer edge of each circle to toward the center ending 1/2" from the center. Cut points or rounded ends on each petal.

	Cut a strip of felt 3/4" x 2". Cut a craft foam bat using my print out.

	Using your finger, brush a very small amount of metallic paste to the tips of the flowers. Cut strips of the Fabric Fusion sheets to fit in the center of each flower circle, on the back of the bat, on the barrette base and felt strip. Stick all the layers together and stick the flower to the barrette base.

	Put the felt strip through the underside of the barrette and stick to the bottom of the flower.

	Add jewel eyes to the bat and you're ready to wear it! He is available in my Etsy shop DeliciousMischief

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 3 - Halloween Hand Soap

It's day 3 of Smeared and Smudged Forum's 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop!
Below are all the fabulous bloggers:

Here's an easy Halloween upcycle project - Eye of newt hand soap! Dig out you favorite Halloween papers, and embellishments and create a one of a kind home accent!

Materials:
Soap pump bottle
Aleene's Collage Paudge Matte or Glossy
Decorative paper
Halloween ephemera
Gems
Paint brush
Scissors

	Remove the label from a soap pump. Measure the bottle and cut decorative paper to go all the way around. Paint the bottle and the back of the paper with Collage Paudge and attach the paper. Immediately coat the outside of the paper with the collage medium. If your bottle is not straight up and down you may have to do some clipping an overlapping. Smooth as much as possible.

	Add paper embellishments in the same way. I wanted the bat wing to stand out, so I coated the back of it to seal it.

	Glue on the rest of the embellishments and allow to dry.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 2 - Monster Football

Day 2 of Smeared and Smudged Forum's 31 Days of Halloween Blog Hop!
Below are all the fabulous bloggers:

Here's a Halloween project for the kids - A paper football built around a set of vampire teeth that they can paint and glue faces on and will hold up to rough play!

My oldest kidlet (my brother's grand kids) is 11 and the youngest is 6. We recently started having one party a month where one kidlet gets to pick the theme, help with the invitations, plan the meal and come up with a craft. We drew names to see who got which month.

Stevie had the month of September. He couldn't decide between a football theme or a monster theme, hence the monster football.

My daughter and I put the balls together in about an hour and the only thing I had to buy was the teeth, so this is a pretty economical project.

Materials:

Plastic vampire teeth - the cheap kind with upper and lower teeth connected
Hot glue
Felt in various colors
Lots of cheap masking tape - painter's tape won't stick when you start painting recycled paper Scissors

	I started with teeth and red felt. I traced around the teeth on the felt leaving 1 1/2" on both sides. The side pieces are 1" and you can see I've marked the center for cutting. Glue the upper and lower curves of the felt to the inside of the teeth. Cut the side pieces as marked. Fold the pieces over the sides of the teeth and glue in place.

	Cut a strip of felt to fit all the way around the outside of the teeth with the teeth partially closed. Glue in place.

	You can see that the mouth is secured here and can't open any more than this.

	Begin building the paper football around the mouth, securing the first piece with glue. I used recycled packing paper, but anything will do.

	Tape down every layer of bunched paper with tape, but not this blue tape as it's designed to come off easily and you don't want that for this project. Shape as you go.

	This is as far as my daughter and I went. The kids got to paint it before dinner, then design the lips, eyes and stripes from felt. I did the gluing, because my new hot glue gun is way hot!

	After we were done, my brother and I went outside to be the ghoulposts for the kids. It was a hoot!

Stevie is demonstrating his scary football face! Eeek! Too much fun!

Monday, October 1, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Kick off!

Happy first day of October and the awesome 31 Days of October Blog Hop!

Below are all the fabulous bloggers:

You won't believe how easy it is to make this delicious mailable cake art!

Part 1 - Carve and paint a sponge to look just like cake, then attach a post card

Part 2 - Frost your cake mail with painter's caulk and add Halloween bling

Come back tomorrow for another Halloween treat! Moohoooaahahah!

Materials:
Aleene's Super Thick Tacky Glue
Large sponge
Painter's caulk
Card stock
Acrylic paint
Paint brush
Craft knife
Plastic disposable pastry bags - sandwich bags are not strong enough for this
Embellishments
1. Cut sponge into wedges/cake slice shapes.
2. Cut a slot down the center of one side, horizontally and cut away the sponge in the slot.
3. Paint the sponge and allow to dry.
4. Cut card stock to the size of one side of the cake and glue on.
5. Squeeze caulk into a disposable pastry bag, tie the end off with a baggie tie and snip off the tip.
6. Squeeze the caulk into the slot on the side and all over the top and back of the cake.
7. Add embellishments to the icing.
8. Allow to dry until the caulk is hard. That may take a few days.

Candace Jedrowicz

Welcome to my blog! It's all about art, whimsy and Halloween!

My first memories of Halloween involve my dad making a spooky short film with my older brothers' cub scout troop. We had an unfinished wall in the basement that he drew a cemetery scene on and he directed the boys to walk warily into the "graveyard" where a member of the troop was waiting to pop up wearing a mask to scare them. The old 8mm film had no sound, so the boys had to be very melodramatic. It was a hoot!

I remember a cardboard box robot costume with blinking Christmas light that Dad made for my brother, Mike. Dad always collaborated with Mom for any sewn bits of costumes. Mom was a patient and talented soul, herself. We always had way more fun than a person should have at Halloween!

If you love Halloween as much as I do, you'll want to check out the blogs I follow!