Sweet table set up tricks for your Halloween treats

Are you hosting a Halloween party this weekend? Here's a few of my tips and tricks for setting up a Halloween sweet table. 

Tip no. 1 - It's okay to use an assortment of different containers and cake stands to display your treats. If you are going to use coloured dishes just try to keep them all to one colour so that the colours of the treats will take centre stage. 

Tip no 2 - Keep your treats simple and don't stress about having to make everything yourself. I used a combination of store bought treats (donuts and two-bite brownies) and combined them with some easy to make treats (candy bark and a chocolate covered cereals) and bulk food candies (gummy worms and candy covered popcorn).

The candy bark was so easy to make using melted chocolate and assorted candies and sprinkles. I was inspired to make my candy bark after reading the recipe in SheEntertains magazine.

Whenever I don't have time to make brownies I buy one-bite brownies and decorate them with store bought cake icing and sprinkles. Everyone just assumes that I made them myself. 

Trick no. 3 Use some Halloween decorations in your set up that work with the colours of your treats. I added pumpkins that I decorated!

Tip no. 4 - Try to elevate some of your serving containers so that everything is not at the same height. I used a few wood slabs in my set up - stacks of books or set up boxes will work too.

I decorated a number of pumpkins this fall using paint, glitter, tissue paper, chalk markers and gold paint markers. You can see some of them here and on Instagram.

The gold polka dots on my pumpkin were created with gold tissue paper and mod podge. It took me less than 15 minutes to decorate the pumpkin and all of my polka dots are the same size!

Here's a quick tip for cutting perfect tissue paper circles - use a paper punch! I find that it is easier to punch three or four sheets of tissue paper along with one sheet of text paper. 

I hope that your weekend is boo-tiful. 

My diy watercolour bags are featured in SheEntertains magazine by Elle Daftarian

I teamed up early this month on a project with Elle Daftarian from Petite and Sweet. Elle has just published her Fall 2015 edition of SheEntertains which is an online magazine and it is full of great entertaining ideas for fall and Halloween. 

I created the diy watercolour tote and favor bags for a Halloween party that Elle hosted for her daughter Sophia and Sophia's friends. You can find all of the details about the party and the diy tutorial to create these bags in SheEntertains. 

If you are interested in creating the bags yourself you download my graphics for the tote bag  here.

click on the photo to download

By the way, the font that I used to create the girls' names for the favor bags is called Mulberry Script and you can find it here. 

do it yourself wrap bead bracelets

Don't you just love wrap bead bracelets?! I purchased one while I was in Barcelona last fall and I wear it all of the time. I can wear it alone and I layer it with other bracelets. 

After purchasing some small turquoise beads on sale at Michaels the other week, I decided to try my hand at making my own wrap bracelets. Here's how I made mine:

My supplies: small beads (keep in mine the smaller the bead the more beads you will need), two sizes of beading thread (I purchased the cording shown at Michaels and used the two threads at the top), 2 collapsible eye beading needles, bead stringing glue, small buttons (mine were antique), scissors, two clips and a board to work on. 

You will need two different thickness of beading thread. The thicker thread will be used as the base of the bracelet and the thinner thread will be used to add the beads to the base. 

Note: You are going to pass the thinner thread through each bead twice so it needs to be very thin but strong.

I used my original wrap bracelet as a guide for how long to cut the threads. 

My original bracelet wraps around my wrist twice and is 15" long. 

So I cut my thicker thread to 50" long and the thinner thread to 92". 

First step is to add a button to the thicker (base) thread. Fold the thread in half, add the button and add a knot as shown. Note: the button should be able to lay flat - knot the thread so the button can move a little.

 

I created this crafting board so it could hang up for easy storage in my studio. It's basically a 9"x12" masonite board covered in scrapbooking paper. I punched two holes using the crop a dile tool and added a cotton ribbon for hanging. Use two clips to attach the thread base to the board as shown. You need to create a space between the two base threads so you can easily add the beads.

Once the thread base is secure on the board, fold the thinner beading thread in half and add it to the thread base just below the knot. Add a collapsible beading needle to both ends of the beading thread.

Tip: If you don't have a board like mine use a clipboard and one clip.

And now the fun begins ... adding the beads!

top left: Tie a knot with the beading thread to keep it in place on the base threads.

top right: Wrap the ends of the beading threads around each base thread twice.

middle left: Add a bead to the bead thread on the left as shown.

middle right: Take the bead thread on the right and insert it into the same bead as shown.

bottom left: Wrap the two bead threads around both base threads again - twice.

bottom right: Add another bead using same guidelines as before.

You will continue to add beads (remember to wrap bead threads twice before adding next bead) until you are close to the bottom of the board. 

Here's a close up for reference.

My finished bracelet will be longer than the length of my board so I had to re position the base threads. I wanted my beaded area to be 12.5" long. Keep checking the length of your bracelet so that you will know when to stop.

FYI: I used 55 beads on my bracelet. The bracelet that I purchased had 80 smaller beads. 

Once you are satisfied with the bead length, you are ready to finish the bracelet.

top left: After the last bead is in place, wrap the bead threads around the base threads two last times.

top right: Knot the beading threads around the base threads as shown. Cut the beading threads and add bead string glue to the ends to prevent fraying.

middle left: Tie a knot with the based threads directly over the beading thread knot.

middle right: Knot the base threads once more to create a "button hole". Make sure that the button hole is large enough for your button to go through.

bottom left: Create one additional knot to finish the bracelet as shown. Cut the threads close to the knot and add a little bead string glue to prevent fraying.

bottom right: Your bracelet is ready to wear!

Here's another look at my finished bracelets.

I'm also so excited to be on Instagram now! You can find me here! I'm really new to Instagram and still looking for other creative people to follow for inspiration. Leave me a comment if you have any suggestions.

embroidery hoop art using printable cotton fabric transfers

After being inspired by the endless number of projects that have been popping up on Pinterest featuring art framed in embroidery hoops, I went to work digging through my sewing supplies for my stash of embroidery hoops. I did a lot of cross stitching back in the 80's and like most of my craft addictions, I (still) have a ton of supplies to use up.

I have been playing around with these printable cotton fabric transfers and I decided to try them out for this project. Unlike most of the iron on transfers that I use, these ones are actually cotton fabric that goes through the ink jet printer - so you don't have to worry about reversing the image before printing. The adhesive is on the back so there is no fading when you iron them onto another fabric.

  

Once you have printed out the fabric transfers you will need to cut the image out before you iron them onto the fabric of your choice. I used an inexpensive unbleached cotton for my background material.

Embroidery hoops are available in a number of different sizes. I sized my fabric transfer to just fit inside the embroidery hoops so that there would be room for me to stitch a decorative boarder around the image.

I have not been sewing for a while and forgot how relaxing it can be. It's easy to do while watching tv or sitting shotgun on a long car trip. I used a number of different colours and stitches on these pieces. The metal letters came from my scrapbooking stash and were perfect for this little project.

I also used a combination of felt and buttons to create little saying on each of my pieces ... like sweet "heart" and 

"sun" shine. If you want to re-create something similar to this and can't find the metal letters you can always add the words to your art before you print it on the fabric transfers.

Now I just need to find a place in my studio to hang these!