Nightmare Before Christmas inspired man eating plant wreath

Everyone in this house just LOVES Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. Everything from it’s stop-motion to it’s characters and story are just amazing! Even Miss M and Miss S fell in love with the book, movie and ride at Disneyland. I will be honest I was a little worried how a 4 year old and a 2.5 year old were going to handle the movie due to it’s darker tones. But I think that the way that my husband and I slowly introduced the story to them, they were able to handle it very well.

I have been wanting to make one of these wreaths for awhile but kept it on the back burner until I felt that they wouldn’t be scared of it. So, with their new found love of the movie I decided to put my creation to work this year!

So, lets get on with my Nightmare Before Christmas wreath, shall we?!

Supplies:

• Wreath
• Red ribbon for the bow (I used a wired ribbon so you can shape it how you want)
• Sprigs of red berries
• White foam sheet for the teeth
• White modeling clay for the eyes (I used Crayola’s Model Magic)
• Black Marker or Paint (to put the dots on the eyes)
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors

Step 1: The first thing I did was fluff my wreath. They always come a little matted and blah.

Step 2: Put white paper behind the wreath and draw out the teeth.

Step 3: Cut the paper teeth out and trace them onto the white foam.

Step 4: Cut the foam teeth out carefully. Don’t worry about the straight edges too much because you will probably shape them a little bit more while you are putting them on the wreath.

Step 5: Make ribbon bow to the size that you want it and tie it onto the lower part of the wreath. I used a red pipe cleaner to attach the bow to the wreath. This will allow you to reposition the bow once you get all the rest of the stuff on it (I ended up moving it lower once I put the teeth on).

Step 6: Flip wreath over and glue teeth onto the underside of the wreath. I had to cut pieces of foam off in order to fit them onto the wreath nicely due to the framing.

Step 7: Turn the wreath back over the correct way and re-fluff the branches and bow if needed.

Step 8: Form the eyes using the modeling clay and dry using the required method. The modeling clay that I used just had to be left out over night to be hardened enough to the touch. This allowed it to be glued onto the wreath perfectly. It will continue to harden for the next 72 hours.

Step 9: Pull berries off of sprigs to glue randomly on wreath. Glue eyes (when dry) to the wreath. Make sure you position them so that they look angry so, slightly downward in the inside.

Step 10: Draw/paint the dots for the eyes very carefully so that they are even.

Then wallah you are done! Go and hang that bad boy on your door! I am sure it will be a conversation starter when someone comes to your door. Plus, in the story Jack Skellington finds Christmas Town the day after Halloween (my favorite holiday) and starts planning his take over of Christmas shortly after. So, I take that as I can have this wreath up from November 1st until the end of December! One wreath for two months, hells yeah!

Beach Sand Capsules

Living in Southern California, we go to a lot of beaches. I thought that it would be a cute idea to come up with a way to show which beaches that our family has played at. It took awhile to find the right kind of glass containers that I wanted to use to hold the sand. I didn’t want them to be too big but at the same time I wanted the to be big enough to hold shells that we find at the beach as well. That way the containers will be different and have their own personality to them.

When I was out with some friends we checked out The World Market. It was my first time in there… let me just tell you it’s a dangerous place! So many nice things in that store! Any who… while I was in there I just happen to come across these cute little glass spice containers. As you can see they fit everything perfectly! You can find them here: Stainless Steel Lidded Spice Jars

I just happen to have some sand from a new beach that we visited recently so, I will show you all how I put it all together!

The first thing I did was get some clear labels, from any store that has an office section, and wrote the name of the beach on it. I wanted to do this first so that I didn’t have to worry about left over sand getting stuck to the sticky side of the label.

Next you will want to take the lid off the container (mind had a plastic shaker top that I also had to remove, yours might not have them depending on what you decide to use).

Now you are ready to pour in your beach sand that you collected. I would suggest letting the sand dry because it’s easier to work with that way. You could try to add it in when it’s wet but I can’t guarantee that the sand will stay wet.

When you have the amount of sand that you want in your container (I’ll be getting more sand to add to mine when I go to that beach again… I’m not really happy with the amount of sand in it right now) you can add any shells, sea glass or anything else that you found on the beach and want to save).

The only thing that is left is to put the lid on and slap the label on!

Now I just have to collect some sand from the other beaches that we have gone to so we have the full set!

Learning to knit one step at a time with Melody’s Makings

I have been crocheting since my Mom taught me at the age of 10. I wasn’t that great at it in the beginning but every time that I took it up again (took a few years off from it here and there) I just got better and better at. When I was first learning I was just making simple single and double crochet blankets. I have way surpassed that now.

I have thought about taking up how to knit numerous times over the past few years. But I just couldn’t seem to find a good teacher (book or video) that I was comfortable learning from and showed signs of progress. That has all changed since Melody but up her first How-to Video.

Let me give you a little back story on how I can across her wonderful patterns. Back when we first moved to California I didn’t really have much to do. All of our stuff was on a moving truck going across country. I was 8 months pregnant and had a 18 month old daughter chillin’ with me at our little temp apartment. One day I packed her up in the van and decided to get some supplies to make the baby a blanket to help pass the time. After that I moved onto many other things; hats, scarves, cowls, photo props… you name it I was making it! About a year later I joined a giveaway that had a bunch of pattern designers that were participating. So, I figured why not enter…. sure enough I won a pattern pack for  Melody’s Makings. When looking at her site I noticed that she had many more knitting patterns then crochet so I picked all of the crochet ones and then a couple of the easier knitting ones (just in case I learned). I then liked her fan page and followed her blog. Since then I have done a bunch of pattern tests for her and have chatted with her over the internet.

When she posted that she was going to be putting up a How-to-Knit series up on her site I was super excited! I just knew from working with her crochet patterns that I was going to like her tutorials. Boy, was I wrong… I LOVED them!

The first two videos that she posted: Beginning with the Basics & How to Cast On, had me hooked! Her method of casting on was so easy and related to me since I am originally a crocheter and she taught how to do it with a crochet hook! Awesome right?!

Well, I have recently passed her Tutorial on The Knit Stitch and lets just say that I have mastered that as well!

I tried to move onto her next Tutorial which was The Purl Stitch but for some reason that one seems to keep eluding me. I chatted with her a little bit about it tonight and she offered to help me with it over the phone! How awesome is that! She is going way beyond any of the How To Videos or Books that I have found in the past that’s for sure!

I really can’t wait to get past the hiccup that is the purl stitch so that I can get into making stuff with this new found knowledge! Oh and did I mention that she doesn’t just teach you how to do a scarf or a swatch? She teaches you how to make one of her patterns! So she has you putting your newly acquired skills to use right away. I find this a good way to keep it in your mind and keep you working with it!

She just started writing up some awesome business advice for anyone that is in the crafting field too! But that will be in another post!

Here is all of Melody’s information so please: Like, Share, Sign-up and Follow!

Melody’s Makings
Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/MelodysMakings
Website: http://melodys-makings.com/