halloween pegs tutorial

halloween pegs

Ingredients:
wooden clothes pegs (or the mini craft pegs)
twine
acrylic paint (orange and black)
water
paintbrushes
vintage buttons
glue

directions:
1. put a dab of paint onto a small plate and add a little water to it.

2. paint the pegs with the watery paint so that the paint soaks into the wood of the pegs.

3. let the pegs dry (you may need to wipe them down with a cloth or tissue to get a more rustic effect.

4. dab glue onto the back of a vintage button and glue it to your peg.

5. clip your pegs to the twine or anywhere you please. Or give them away as a little gift.


cook's note: its a simple project, a fun thing for kids to help do, great for holding cards, decorations or scraps of fabric. I have misplaces the craft magnets I bought ages ago but if I do find them I plan to stick them to the back of one of the pegs to make a magnetic clip.

Lillian and the Slightly Sinister Strawberry

Meet Lillian she is 7. She is pretty, bright as a button, has an air of melancholia about her and likes to dress like Wednesday Adams. Lillian likes to write gory dark fairy tales where the handsome prince is incinerated and eaten by the dragon. Snow White poisoned the Dwarfs to live in their home, push her stepmother in a well and unleashed a plague on the Forrest creatures. Or there's the one where the troll eats all the Billy Goats Gruff and then goes and dies of indigestion. Its all very horrid and I shouldn't ask if I were you. She also likes to write her own endings in books with a red pen, they all end rather badly, you don't even want to know what she wrote at the end of my vintage copy of the Wizard of Oz, lets just say the lion was very hungry and leave it at that.
Lillian's pet strawberry. technically it is a pincushion but don't tell Lillian that, she says that the Slightly Sinister Strawberry is real and has slightly sinister intentions towards you. It is only ever so slightly evil, so mostly you are OK, but you might find that your shoes are tied together, that the last cookie is missing from the jar, or that the battery has died on your phone or your ipod the second you step out of the door. The Slightly Sinister Strawberry goes everywhere that Lillian goes and it helps her to write her fairy tales. Apparently it also bites.

Lillian is a one of a kind bespoke doll, made from fabric, vintage buttons, vintage doily, and yarn. She is primitive in style and not made from a pattern, I was inspired by the materials at hand and the strawberry pincushion I made the day before making Lillian. Lillian comes with her Slightly Sinister Strawberry.

'Anyhow, you’ve been warned and I will not be blamed
If your Wild Strawberry cannot be tamed'. -Wild Strawberry by Shel Silverstein

Lillian and her Slightly Sinister Strawberry will be on sale in my etsy shop in a few moments.

Good Spirit

Gilbert the Ghostie

I'd like you to meet Gilbert the Ghostie, he is a little bit shy and tends to wear his heart o his sleeve. Well he would if he had sleeves that is. He is a bit rubbish at being scary, in fact he is proably more afraid of you then you would be of him. He loves musicals, spagetti westerns, hot cocoa, and popcorn. You can often find him wandering round the forrest singing show tunes to his friends the trees.

onyx, orange carnelian, and sterling silver, bracelet

I know its over a month until Halloween but its my favourite holiday of the year, candy, coustumes, monster movies, more candy whats not to love about it? The bright orange carnelian faceted bades arrived in the post yesterday from Bobbi and I couldn't wait to pair them with some black onyx for a scintalating Halloween treat.

Gilbert on a small recycled paper notebook

And here is Gilbert again, gracing the cover of a tiny recycled paper notebook that has been floating around various boxes since well before the move. all items with any luck should be uploaded to etsy later this afternoon.