Halloween 2014 Cleopatra and her Cobra

Cleopatra costume made by me and Cobra costume from chasingfireflies.com

Emily and Ava as Cleopatra and her Asp. Did you know Cleopatra was killed by a cobra? So fascinating was her life.  Married to two of her brothers, she had relationship that produced a son with Caesar and a relationship with Mark Antony that produced 3 children (I think I have my facts straight...). Rather than be enslaved after Egypt was captured by Octavian she had an Asp (Egyptian Cobra) bite and kill her (or so they say. Apparently there are different theory's). One of the best books I have read on her is Memoirs of Cleopatra. Also, if you've not seen Rome you need to!

So how did we decide on these two? Emily wanted to be an Angler fish but we couldn't decide on a matching costume for Ava . I found this Cobra and Emily was immediately excited and wanted to be it. But what to do for Ava...Cleopatra! What sold Ava on the idea was the golden headpiece (from amazon).

So Emily's costume is from chasingfireflies.com  but Ava's is made. I used Simplicity 2329 in a size 7 (she's 6.5 and the 7 was huge on her. I cut off about 4-6" off the bodice width and about 15" off the length of the skirt). I used a stretchy gold/black velvety fabric for the dress and a gold pleather-like fabric for the neck and waist pieces. The cape is a gold/black lame that just snaps onto her neck piece. All beads and fabric are from Joanns. I didn't line or interface anything. I also didn't follow directions on the cape so it's off-center and wonky:)

Victorian Demon Silhouette

More Halloween decorations. I can't decorate outside but I can inside. Buut...I think I'm not feeling it so much this year because I have to bring all my Halloween stuff from storage (go to storage, put it in the car, drive it back and carry big tubs across a parking lot to my apartment) and I really don't want to do that. I live in about 250 sq ft (only half joking) so I don't want to bring more stuff in. 

SOOO I'm really only decorating with some stuff I've found at Target or Michaels that I really wanted.

I love silhouettes. Love them. And I love silhouettes on plates (remember these? Kelly them)

Above is a silver charger from Michael's. and below is the silhouette I made on my Silhouette Cameo out of vinyl. I used 3 different designs from the silhouette store to get this. The first is the lady then I bought a demon and used it's wings then I got devil horns and put them all together.

If you look close, you can see she has fangs!

Chalkboard Tombstones

I wasn't really ready to blog these but I realized Halloween is in 2 weeks so I had better just blog the photos I have! I had seen these chalkboard tombstones on the Pottery Barn website and HAD to make them. HAD TO. And I knew just the person to help me. Hi Dad! I've been waiting years to come back to the states so my dad and I can work together in the garage making things. 

I made these about the same size as the Pottery barn ones and out of about 3/4" wood and googeled tombstones for the shapes. I made little patterns from pattern making paper to get the right shapes then made big ones (see 3rd photo down) for the actual patterns. We traced and cut and then painted with chalkboard paint. They have about two layers each. I prepped the surface with the regular chalk like suggested then used chalk pens to draw.

To get my letters on the tombstone I googeled  chalkboard lettering tutorial. Can't remember which one i used but it's the method of rubbing chalk on the back side then tracing over the letters on the front side. It will leave a faint outline of each letter. I didn't do this for the B.A. Frade because my friend Lisa did that one free-hand. We didn't have a printer handy when doing that one.

I made another Martha Stewart witch silhouette for my sister-in-law. I have it propped up at my parents and I just got a call saying this view right here scared the crap out of them (more than once). It scared me too actually. I rounded the corner and yelped! 

  Back in August I think, I was contacted by Heather D. to make her daughter an Astrid costume  like Ava's.  How cool is that? I LOVE this version way better than Ava's. The skulls were made by this etsy seller and they are perfect, They don't break or crumble and are uniform in size. I had a rough time aging them but other than that I love them and recommend this seller. The costume was made a while ago and already shipped. I hope to see a picture of her daughter in it!