Month: October 2013

Halloween decorations made with newspaper!

For my latest AP craft story, I made a Halloween wreath and garland using newspaper. I figured, the black and white color scheme is a perfect jumping off point for Halloween decor, and given that I am a journalist, why not encourage people to buy more newspapers!

I had never made rolled-paper roses before. They weren’t difficult, but they were quite time consuming. I was on deadline and had to make them all in one day, but it would not have seemed like such a chore had I spread it out over a few days. My wreath really could use another row of flowers around the outer edge, but it was good enough for a straight-on photo!

I also experimented with a more minimalist look, removing the glittery embellishments and just adding a mini pumpkin.

I like that version better, and that’s how it is hanging on my dining room wall now, though the pumpkin keeps falling off! I think I need to spear it with a toothpick and stick it into the foam wreath.

The directions can be found here (though news websites often get updated and the links go bad. So if you can’t find it, google “Holly Ramer” “Halloween wreath.”

Here are some of my past Halloween projects and tutorials, just click on the images to go to the posts.

I have to confess, when I purchased Abby Glassenberg’s book, Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction, part of me was thinking, “I’m not REALLY interested in designing my own stuffed animals, but I know the book includes at least a few patterns and projects I would like.” The second part is more than true … I think the only reason I haven’t completed any of them yet (the hippo is in progress) is because I can’t decide which to make. But, what has surprised me is how often I’ve already consulted this book for various projects. So maybe I more interested than I thought!

As I mentioned previously, I tried out a bunch of the various techniques for making round objects when I made the golden snitch and bludgers for my Harry Potter-themed gifts. I ended up using one of those techniques again to make my son a stuffed “Minion” from the Despicable Me 2 movie we saw earlier this summer. Really, I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying different methods to get a rounded head and bottom _ I didn’t want to just have two flat, rounded shapes sewn together, I wanted it to be three-dimensional. What finally worked was sewing three wedge-shaped pieces together to make sort of a dome shape, and then sewing that to the cylinder-shaped body. Of course, I then added a hat and covered up all that hard work!

Parker really wanted the “golfer” minion, so I found some fleece that had a bit of green plaid (it actually was a John Deere print with tractors and green plaid squares). The plaid pieces weren’t quite big enough so I had to piece them together, but overall, it worked. And Parker absolutely loves it.

I also did a bit of designing/improvising when my friend asked me to make a doll for her daughter’s sixth birthday. She had her heart set on a cuddly version of Aang, a character from Avatar: The Last Airbender, a show I’ve never seen. I didn’t want to start completely from scratch so I purchased Abby’s Liam doll pattern. I printed the pattern at 75 percent, and made the head more of an oval shape than round. In retrospect, I wish I had just kept the round head and minimalist look of the original rather than trying to exactly replicate the face from the cartoon. I made a few modifications to the body to add the stripes of orange, and for the legs, I gathered a wider piece of fleece to the lower leg to make the pants more closely resemble the picture. I love the technique for making the feet, very easy and very cute! (though with small pieces like that, I like to baste them together by hand rather than try to fit lots of pins along a small stretch of fabric).

I think the final result looks a bit like a Muppet!

I know I took pictures of the completed doll, but I can’t seem to find them. But here’s a picture I used as reference, and a picture of the final product with the happy recipient: