Saturday, October 29, 2011

Free Printable : Halloween Cupcake Toppers

Halloween is coming! And around here that means festive treats. This year I made my famous pumpkin bread recipe into twenty four cupcakes and topped it with my famous cream cheese icing (updated). To add a little holiday fun I made up some cupcake toppers and thought you might like to use them too. 

This is what the sheet looks like. Just enough for a dozen fabulous cupcakes. Just cut, glue together with a toothpick inserted between two circles and bada bing you're fabulous. Download from Google Docs here. As I am still new to this printable business, please do not hesitate to ask me for help or let me know that something is amiss and you cannot get it to work!

A note about the images used: The top two rows of images were found over at The Graphics Fairy. (You might remember a few from my Vintage Garland of Halloween past.)
The next two rows were made with vector images from AllSilhouettes.com
The last wto rows were made using the Monsterfreak font from Urbanfonts.com

Happy Halloween!!

Oh and one more thing?! Recently I was nominated for Circle of Moms Top 25 Canadian Mom Blogs. Could you be so kind as to hop on over and vote for me? You can vote once a day so if you could do that too I would be eternally grateful. Thanks!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

How To : Candy Corn Patchwork Pillow

Autumn is upon us and I am loving it! Today I spent the entire day outside cleaning and organizing my front yard and deck and porch waiting for our outdoor Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. But, before the weather turned amazing I did some serious sewing. One of the things I made was this pillow, from the scraps of the other projects I did believe it or not.


Cute right?! I know! And it was honest to goodness a scrap project. I love those!
If you want to be cool like m and make one for yourself I took pictures in the hopes I would get my bum in gear and make a tutorial. And look! A tutorial! You will have to forgive the first few steps do not have pictures, but it was an 'a ha' moment I had just after I began. I figured we have all cut out pieces and sewn right sides together enough right? If not, please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you may have regarding the project.

Gather ye materials
Fabric scraps (2) orange
(2) Yellow
(2) White
Pattern (See step 6.5)
Stuffing

Modus Operandi

Step 1. With right sides together sew a white piece to an orange piece.
Step 2. With right sides facing together, sew an orange piece to a yellow piece.
Step 3. Repeat steps 1 & 2
Step 4. Iron seams flat.

Step 5. Top stitch seams. (I like to do this from the bottom but it is your preference.)

Step 6. With right sides together, lay flat on table.
Step 6.5. This is when you will make your pattern. Which is just a triangle made as tall as your scraps will allow  and rounded corners.

Step 7.  Trace your pattern, pin fabric together and sew on top of markings. 


Step 8. Cut out leaving 1/2" allowance notching corners as you go.

Step 9. Turn and press.

Step 10. Fill and close up. I am not known for my ladder stitching so I chose to use some fabric glue and a couple clothes pins. Again this is one of those steps that is up to you.


I think this project would have the biggest impact if multiple pillows were made. Maybe next year I'll add a few more so that my little pillow is not so lonely. For now though it is an adorable bit of seasonal decor that will be welcome in the house until Christmas decorations start popping up.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Wednesday on Wednesday

I hope both your weather and your holiday (For my Canadian readers) weekend have been amazing where you are as they have been here. Temperatures in the high twenties have been keeping me from blogging. After an amazing dinner with family and friends on Sunday, we went on day trip to check out the fall foliage. Living in South eastern Ontario is really quite a treat this time of year. Cheers.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Saturday, October 1, 2011

How To: Harry Potter Text Book Covers

I have created a lot of things in my time, some amazing, some big fat fails, some with a sewing machine and every now and again I am able to create something with the computer that just makes my heart happy. Right now the combination of Halloween decoration and harry Potter inspiration has me just tickled pink (or a festive orange and black).

The original inspiration for this project came from a ceramic set of books from Michaels Halloween deco section. I have a picture somewhere just a sec...here is a clearer one then my horrible cell phone pic.
Original pieces are titled: Hexes & Curses, Essential Potions, Rituals and Charms.
With some recycled paper shopping bags and Photoshop, this is what I came up with.....
 In case you are wondering about the absolutely amazing Nightmare before Christmas mugs, my sister and her husband bought them for me for Christmas from last year's Tim Burton exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum.

At first, when I started designing the book covers I went with the titles in the original photo. But it then occured to me that these were very similar to subjects the Hogwarts taught. I was then inspired further to make textbooks from the actual books and movies. To keep the Halloween theme the spines have a sinister feel them while the front of the jacket is titled and authored just as it was in the books (and movies.)
Each book cover is inspired by the actual book but none are identical. I have neither talent or the time but I am incredibly happy with each and ever book. (Did you notice there were seven books?)

How about a look see at each cover.
Left book: On the spine this one says BEASTS, but the front cover is the first year textbook Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them by Newt Seamander.
Right book: On the spine is DIVINATION, on the front is the third year text Unfogging The Future by Cassandra Vablatsky.
Left Book: The spine reads HERBOLOGY, the cover is Magical Water Plants of The Highland Lochs by Hadrian Whittle. This was the book Neville learned about gillyweed which Harry used to compete in the Tri-Wizard tournament.
Right book: The spine reads HORCRUXES, the is Secrets of the Darkets Art by Owle Bullock, This was the book that Tom Riddle would have gleaned his initial knowledge of horcruxes from.
Left book: Spine reads POTIONS, front is the sixth year potions text, Advanced Potion Making by Libatius Borage. (Half blood prince would have used this same book.)
Right: Spine reads SPELLS, front is first year text Standard Book of Spells by Miranda Goshank.
 Left book: Spine reads VAMPYRE, cover is perhaps my favourite just for the cheekiness factor. It is second year text Gilderoy Lockhart's Voyages With Vampires
Right book: The back of each book cover reads Happy Halloween!

Pretty amazing right? Seriously, I am in love. They were worth every single second they took to make. And they took awhile let me tell you. They won't take you any time though because I have made a handy dandy zip folder of the finished covers for printable just for you to download!

All I did was cut the paper bags to fit the book and then feed it through the printer.
Do you see how each book is a little different in size? I did that on purpose. I did not want them to like a Harry Potter box set.
♥ Every cover is designed to print out onto paper no wider than an regular sized printer allows. So when cutting your pages from paper shopping bags just remember to never make them taller than 8.5" and no longer than 16".
♥ The height of each book varies from 7" to 8.5". Please take note of the image size when you are printing and adjust your print settings accordingly.
♥ The width of each book cover also varies from 14" to 16". Please check each document and adjust your print settings accordingly.
♥ Each cover is set up to give approximately 1" of cover inside each book. If you would rather a more snug fit you can always use low tack painters masking tape.
♥ And just in case you're wondering:
-Horcruxes is a hundred year old Latin Dictionary
-Beasts is an electrical wiring handbook
-Herbology is Clan of the Cave bear
-Potions is Douglas Adams' Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy (A trilogy in five parts) 
-Divination is Anne Rice's Pandora
-Spells is Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix
-Vampyre is Book Thirteen of Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events

Notes about the graphics & fonts:

♥ I could not have made any of these book covers without the graphics from a couple great websites: The Graphics Fairy and Vintage Feed Sacks were easily the biggest help.
♥ I downloaded almost every font from fontspace.com that link is a great list of Harry Potter related and/or themed fonts. Some mimic the fonts used in the movies.

A few notes before I give up the link though, if you wouldn't mind reading them.
♥ So as not to detract from the sheer awesomeness of the graphics I have not added a watermark anywhere to the covers. That being said, I would appreciate it you do not share these files via email. Please, link back to this page whenever you would like to share the files. Which I encourage you to do. Go forth, make the world a little more spooky!
♥ I have never shared files before so if for some reason you cannot access the files, or have trouble using them PLEASE leave a description of the issue in the comment section and I promise to notify you as soon as it has been remedied.

Finally, HERE is the link for download. There is seven book covers in a zipped folder. Click the link, it will bring you to a Googledoc page in the upper left corner click on file>download original.You will need a program to unzip it. If you do not have one, I recommend Winrar.
 
If you have any issues please do not hesitate to leave a comment with your issue, I will help you out in any way I can. Happy crafting and happy haunting!