the thrifty crafter

We decided to throw together a last-minute party for Halloween this year so I hit up the Dollar Store to see what I could find.  Never a big fan of anything cheesy (though my husband is all about giant blow up lawn ornaments and the like – we’ll battle that one out at Christmas, I’m sure!), I tend to look for inexpensive basics that I can dress up.  What I found on my recent trip were black serving plates, a black plastic tablecloth, some cheesecloth, the fake spiderwebs you find at most places, and some lovely rubber rats. I went to the dollar store specifically looking for black construction paper, which I unfortunately did not find, so went through my scrapbooking stash and luckily found about 4 sheets of black cardstock (which you can buy at Joann’s or Michael’s).

So, for a whopping $6, I turned my food table into a spooky serving place by layering the cheesecloth over the normally-tacky black plastic tablecloth, adding the rats for some extra creepiness.  I used the fake spiderwebs to add some festivity to the front door and the coffee table and used last year’s decor to top it off.

With the black scrapbook paper, I decided to make some bats to hang from the ceiling, after a summer road trip through Austin, TX where we watched the Congress Ave bats take flight at dusk.

To do this, I found a silhouette image of a bat on the internet, traced it onto a piece of paper (don’t yet have a printer in my new house), cut it out and copied it onto scrapbook paper. A trick for less tracing/cutting: fold your paper edge over and line the bat up so he is bisected lengthwise. This way, you don’t spend as much time cutting AND the crease makes the bat look like he’s in flight!

Use a needle and fishing line, or in my case, invisible thread which I had on hand, to hang from the ceiling with clear tape.  I love the way it turned out!

To continue with the bat theme, my husband has loved the idea of a conceptual costume ever since we donned chick magnet and deviled egg costumes a few years back. This year, we decided he would be a “dingbat”.  Easiest costume ever! Your base: black shirt, pants and shoes. Then, you need some scrap black fabric, about half a yard, for your wings, and a desk courtesy bell that you can find for cheap from your local office supply store.

All I did was cut wings from the scrap fabric by laying the shirt flat with arms stretched out at 90 degrees, lining up the corner of the fabric and scalloped the edge from wrist to hem to look like a bat wing.  When done, simply glue the wings onto the shirt seams, then hot glue the desk bell to the front of the shirt.  Hit the bell, and up go his arms! A hit with the kids, who couldn’t stop dinging him! We fashioned a quick set of bat ears with a headband and some leftover black felt, though my dear husband took the liberty of cutting them without consulting me first and he ended up looking more like a flying dingcat.  But you get the picture. And doesn’t my doggy make the cutest shark?

Halloween is quickly approaching and I wanted to share some costume ideas that we used last year. After a discussion with a friend who introduced me to the idea of a “conceptual” costume, my husband and I decided we wanted to be clever in our costume undertaking.  These creative costumes are derived from popular phrases and take a relatively abstract idea and conceptualize it.  Best of all, they are easy to make from items you may already have at home and are super inexpensive and thus, very thriftycrafter friendly.

My husband was a chick magnet.

Here’s what you need:

• Black shirt and pants
• Plastic Barbie dolls from the Dollar Tree or 99 cent store
• Magazine cut outs of hot chicks (from Maxim/Stuff)
• Safety pins

Here’s what you do:

Use safety pins to attach barbies and magazine cut-outs to your man, who is dressed in black.  Voila!  Easiest costume ever! In addition, you could spray paint a shoe box black and attach it to his back so the magnet concept is more obvious, but most everyone understood and loved his costume without it!

Cost: $8 for 7 barbies and a box of safety pins at the 99 cent store

I was a deviled egg.

Here’s what you need:

• white strapless dress (I used a white terry cloth beach cover-up I already had)
• large piece of yellow fabric (I used leftover felt)
• devil’s horns and tail (and a pitchfork, if you have one)
• safety pins

Here’s what you do:

1. Cut out a large oval shape from your piece of yellow felt to represent an egg yolk and use safety pins to attach to the front of your dress.
2. Wear devil’s horns, pin a tail on, wear some red patent heels and go wild with your hair.  Voila! Still kinda sexy and clever…a powerful combo!

Cost: Free! (because I used leftover scrap fabric from making my dog’s costume)

Note:  If you don’t already have devil’s horns or tail, but have red scrap fabric, pillow stuffing and a headband like I did, you can very easily fashion these items on your own.  Here’s how:

1. Draw out a horn shape on a piece of paper first, then copy to your fabric (I used leftover red felt – something less stiff would be easier to turn out but might not stand up as well) .  Cut out two. Then, flip your original shape horizontally to mirror your design, trace and cut out two more.
2. Stitch each horn along outside edge, leaving bottom portion open.  Turn out and stuff with pillow stuffing.
3. Hand sew the base of each horn closed, then spot tack one horn to your elastic headband.  Look in a mirror to check spacing and angulation, then sew the second one on.
4. For the tail, fold your fabric in half and draw a tail shape onto your fabric.  Pin and cut out two tail shapes.  Stitch tail along outside edge, leaving base open.  Turn out and stuff with pillow stuffing.
5. Hand sew the base of the tail closed and use a couple of safety pins to attach to the back of your dress.

These costumes are only two ideas, but the opportunities are endless!  Time to get creative!

Dinner parties are a great way to get your friends together for some Halloween fun!  Setting the table with creative, handmade details will impress your guests and satisfy your own creative sweet tooth.  Here is a tablescape that incorporates the littlest pumpkins centerpiece craft and the hand dyed napkin craft as well as a simple napkin ring fashioned from chenille pipe cleaners and mini feather boas.

Here’s what you need for the Feather Napkin Rings:

• mini feather boa
• black pipe cleaners
• scissors
• ruler

In order to get the right size lumen for the napkin ring, I wrapped a pipe cleaner around an existing napkin ring and twisted it.  Then, wrap the ends of the pipe cleaner around the diameter of the chenille ring to tuck, leaving a small tail unwrapped to serve as the “glue” for the feather boa.  Cut feather boa into 8-9 inch pieces. Take a strand of feather boa and wrap around the chenille ring in the opposite direction as the tail until you reach the end, bending the pipe cleaner tail around the ends of the feather boa to secure. No glue necessary!

Cost: $2 for 8 napkin rings! Can’t beat that! Materials were purchased at Michael’s at the regular price of $0.99 each!

Add some frightful fun to your home decor this Halloween with a couple of spooktacular wreaths!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• feather picks
• bleached moss
• plastic spiders
• grapevine wreath
• styrofoam wreath
• hot glue gun with glue sticks

For the feather wreath, arrange your feathers prior to gluing to make sure you have enough material to cover the entire face of the wreath.  When arranged, insert the individual picks into the grapevine wreath, bend the ends that stick out of the back and secure them with glue.  You can buy more picks to cover the entire wreath, but I think it looks nice with the grapevine background.

For the mossy wreath (original idea from Martha Stewart), as for the feather wreath, lay out your moss prior to gluing to ensure you have enough to cover the styrofoam completely.  Once ready, apply glue to the styrofoam in 2-3 inch sections and press moss  gently against the hot glue to secure.  Adorn the finished wreath with black plastic spiders for an extra creepy effect.

Tip: Make sure to use your 40% off Michael’s coupons for purchasing the wreaths if they aren’t already on sale.  For the feather project, make sure fall accessories are on sale – these were 50% off, so in total, I only spent $6 for 12 feather picks.  The bleached moss was a clearance item at Pottery Barn that I scored for $2.97/bag.  I ended up using two bags on a 12″ styrofoam wreath.

Cost: $10 per wreath!

Tired of using flowers for dinner party table decor? Capture the essence of the fall season and All Hallows Eve with this creatively simple alternative.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• low, metal trays
• dried black beans
• mini pumpkins, preferably in different colors

The trays I used are actually repurposed, rectangular tart pans from Williams-Sonoma which were the perfect dimension for my rectangular table.  Galvanized metal trays would also work well for a more rustic look.  Simply spread the dried beans into the bottom of the tray and place the pumpkins on top.  Using two different colors of pumpkins gives nice contrast and brings in more colors of the season.  If you want, you can glitter the pumpkins for a magical effect.

I found the dried black beans at Big Lots for a whopping $1.00 per bag.  The small pumpkins are sold at grocery stores.

Cost: less than $4 per tray (after using tart pans I already had in my cupboard)

Is it me, or is the trick to shopping the discount stores weeding out all of the tacky stuff?  For people like me, who have a simple design esthetic, I don’t want ghosts embroidered on my placemats or cheesy black, orange and white plaid napkins for Halloween.  I want a simple bright orange napkin paired with a simple black placemat.  I’ll make the tablescape interesting and fun with other adornments, but as a thrifty crafter and entertainer, I think your basic table linen pieces should be able to be mixed and matched with other linens throughout the year, not just for one specific holiday. While it was relatively easy to find plain black placemats (Big Lots, $1.00 each), I had a surprisingly difficult time finding those bright orange napkins.  So, I decided to stop searching and purchased clearance bamboo colored napkins for $0.99 each and dyed them orange with good, old-fashioned RIT.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• a large bucket
• a wooden spoon (or some other utensil to stir the bath with)
• a disposable containter, like a 7-11 Big Gulp cup, to mix the RIT in
• tea kettle or large pot to boil water in
• gloves
• salt
• detergent

Basically, you’ll want to follow the directions on the RIT label for best results.  There was no way in heck I was going to dye napkins in my nice All-Clad stockpot, so I used water just off of a boil to fill a plastic tub that was placed in my sink.  Make sure you dye all articles at once for the same amount of time, otherwise discrepancies in color will occur.

Cost: $9 for 6 napkins

Need a crafty and inexpensive way to hold all that candy for the trick or treaters?  Try this super easy project to add a little spook to your serving bowl.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• craft spider web
• wire fruit bowl (this one purchased from Target for the REGULAR price of $2.49!)
• lotsa candy!

Any type of basket that has natural catches would work well for this project.  Even if your vessel doesn’t have ideal roughness, you can always use Zots to adhere the web to the bowl.  Spread out your webbing, and starting on the bottom of the bowl, use Zots or photo mounting squares to tack down your starting point.  Delicately thread the webbing through and around the wires of your bowl in a non-symmetrical, almost haphazard way, tacking to the bottom of the bowl as needed when you want to change direction.  Finish by tacking to the bottom of the bowl where you started (this doesn’t have to be pretty – no one will ever see the bottom!).

Eh, voila!  A cute, easy and festive way to pass out candy this Halloween, with a reusable bowl, to boot!

Cost: less than $4!

My husband I adopted a little Jack Russell Terrier mix last Christmas who is just too cute NOT to dress up for Halloween!  Since he is perfectly snausage-sized, I decided he should be a hot dog this year.  Unhappy with what I was finding in the stores, I decided to make my own with the help of Simplicity Pattern # 3952, purchased at Joann’s for the sale price of $1.99!

I chose material, again, based on what was on sale.  It just so happened that felt by the yard was on sale for 50% off, which worked out great! A word to the wise – felt can be fairly difficult to turn out so if your patience for craft project difficulty is low, use a fabric that is a bit easier to work with.

The key to keeping this project inexpensive is to shop sales and clip coupons!  I bought the felt and pattern at one visit, then the next week bought the extras – foam, batting and velcro – when coupons could be used.  Plan ahead!  Like everything in life, procrastination has its costs, and trying to whip up an outfit without watching the sales could end up costing you more than buying a pre-made outfit at the store.

Cost: $15!