Sometimes I go thrifting for the fun of it. I’ll get out $20 cash, and go from thrift store to thrift store, looking for interesting things that spark ideas.

When I saw these swirly lampshades for 50 cents each, I thought of delicate ghosts.

After much experimenting, the ghosts ended up consisting of clear labels, transparency sheets, and tulle.

I noticed an electric votive fit into the lampshade very nicely, so I took advantage of that. I cut down transparency sheets to about 5-1/2″ x 4-1/2″.

I fiddled around with some photographs, and came up with three faces.  Here’s a PDF if you would like to use them. I made this sheet, and printed it out on clear label stickers. I printed two so I would have an extra, and also so I could use the second one to guide placement.

Facial features get fussy cut. If the nose and mouth were very close together, I left them attached.

I laid the transparency down in landscape orientation, and placed the guide face in the middle, near the top. I then used it to stick down the features.

The transparency is rolled around an electric votive, and held in place with a bit of tape.

Tape goes on the top seam as well. It won’t show.

I’m using a 6″ wide roll of tulle I got from the dollar store. Cut 4 to 6 lengths of about 15″. The number of lengths depends on your taste in tulle. These ghosts have 4 and 5 lengths.

Smoosh the tulle so it gets all wrinkly. Not only will it look better, it handles better as well.

Place two lengths of tulle over the bottom of the lampshade, crossing one another.

Push the transparency with its candle down on the tulle, into the lampshade, until the candle is just under the lip.

Place a piece of tulle over the opening of the transparency roll, and push it down. Do this with the rest of your tulle lengths, crossing each piece.

Add another electric candle under the base, and you’re done.

These look best in the dark, and would be nice on a spooky black-and-white table arrangement.

Raffle status: Sorry, too delicate to ship.

I was poking around Pinterest, and I kept seeing neat coffin shrines. When I went to prepare this entry, I learned they were all from the same place: Immortal Visions. She makes lots of delightfully spooky things.

For my own coffin shrine, I decided on one of my favorite themes: the ghost bride. As a further challenge, I decided I would use no wet media. No edge distressing, no antiquing. Just cutting and gluing. I only broke my rule twice, and it was touching up, not altering.

I already had a few little wooden coffins, but I inherited a bunch more, including some that were pre-painted black, from a friend. Time to remove the hardware. I put it in a Ziploc and saved it. You never know when you’re going to need a tiny hinge.

While the touch-up paint on the coffin was drying, I got out the stuff. Good times in the paper closet, the lace drawer, and the Halloween bins. I didn’t use everything here, and of course, I found other stuff to grab later.

In Immortal Visions’ shrines, she uses the coffin lid as a base. I chose several papers for this project, in purple and orange. This goes on top of the lid.

I lined the shrine with orange paper, and edged with washi tape.

Important thing I didn’t take a picture of: that orange paper had a nice graveyard on the bottom. I grabbed one of the stones and used it as a template to cut out with different paper. I cut out a center bit, and added a printout from a vintage photo.

The outside of the shrine gets more washi tape.

The gravestone was for the front of the upright, along with some purple roses I’d cut from another paper choice. Working on the inside of the shrine, I cut this cameo from another paper collection, and attached it with foam squares.

Much stringing of tiny plastic pearls.

Then with the hot gluing of the tiny plastic pearls.

Paper flowers will cover that glue mess.

Everything is attached, and the shrine top is done. On to the base.

First things first, lets shroud a doll! I actually thought I was going to wrap her arms separately, but I realized I could blast some heat on them to get them to bend a bit. So the doll got unwrapped.

Glue wasn’t going to do it, so her arms got pinned into position with Scor tape. We, uh, won’t talk about me cutting her feet off to make her fit. Yes, I saved the shoes. You never know when you’re going to need tiny shoes.

Once our unfortunate bride was all shrouded, leaving her lovely braid out (because hey, extra creepy hair!), I decided I wanted some tiny flowers. At first, I tried fussy cutting some out of scrapbook paper. I didn’t like the results or the amount of work I was looking at. So hmm…what do I have that can cut a tiny flower? Well, a Christmas edge punch, of course!

The only red that made me happy was the tissue in a heart doily. Go figure. So I cut off the fiddly bits around the solid heart, and managed to get a few flowers out of each one.

Two gold jump rings were tied together and glued on to lace, which winds delicately around the bride.

A Halloween border, from a pile I’ve been wanting to use, edges the base. That border is a sticker, so I carefully applied PVC glue to the top half to get rid of the stickiness.

When I was going through my Shiny bin, looking for accent pearls, I found this fantastic ribbon I bought years ago at a shop in Portland. It had to go on too.

Close shot of the top.

Here’s the middle bit, with the vintage photo. Tres spooky, oui?

Poor Bride. So young, so lovely, so dead.

Raffle status: Sorry, too delicate to ship.

Drink Can Box by Atomic Shrimp

My inspiration for this project is an embossed aluminum box by Atomic Shrimp.  I read the directions, I watched the video–I even watched the FAQ video linked at the end of the instructional video. I still ended up doing a few things differently–but mostly I followed directions. I can do that. Sometimes.

We begin with a can of my favorite soda. My can is not as big as those for energy drinks, so I have less room to work with. This is the diagram from Atomic Shrimp. I didn’t end up using it.

First: cut an aluminum sheet out of the can. I found it was easier to start the top end with an craft knife, then I cut the rest with scissors.

In the video, he sands the paint off a full drink can. In the photo tutorial, he tapes down the cut out sheet. I preferred the latter. We used to go to a bakery that was right by a nail salon. The salon gave out maintenance kits that sometimes got dropped on the way to the car. That is how I obtained the free block sander that worked perfectly for this project.

I figured out a box shape that would use as much of the can as possible. Graph paper was my friend, as I am terrible at measuring things.

I incised the guide lines with a ball-point pen. I was a little too careful of breaking the metal, and didn’t push hard enough. Most of these lines had to be re-incised later.

Note the double-lines on the flap. That’s so the flap can fold over sharply without breaking.

I drew some light lines to guide my design.

I incised the design with a ball-point pen on the inside of the box.

To go around the design on the outside, I used a stylus, since I didn’t want ink to show. At this point, for no real reason, I decided it was time to cut out the box.  Here’s something I modified: I cut the corners of the flaps at a slight angle. This makes them fold over and fit much more easily.

Now the inside has been re-incised, and the design is complete.  GREAT BIG IMPORTANT NOTE: If your hands are weak or injured, don’t even try this. All the pressing to incise the design hurt. A lot. My mild tendonitis flared up like mad, and I was in a wrist brace for weeks. Heed my warning–this project is for tough fingers.

I notice the metal is a bit curvy. That’s going to make it hard to fold.

Naturally, I iron it. It took a few minutes on high heat, but it didn’t hurt the design, and it helped flatten the metal sheet quite a bit.

The corners got incised on the top side so they’d bend properly, and I folded according to instructions. I could have used an extra hand, but it turned out okay.

To make the bottom half, the center is 1/4″ smaller, and the sides are as much bigger as I could get out of the material.

I didn’t want to do any more hand incising, because OWIE, so I decided to try running the sheet through an embossing machine. I chose a kind of mottled gothic pattern.

It isn’t as deep, but it still looks pretty nice.

I decided not to sand the bottom, because I didn’t need a clear field to incise the design. This way I get to see where the box came from.

The lid is a little big, but I like it! Though I have to admit, I wouldn’t do it again by hand.

Raffle status: this thing is pretty delicate, but I think I can ship it.

I had this 25-cent bowler I picked up at a garage sale. I swore I wasn’t going to paint it. I wasn’t going to turn a 2-hour project into a 2-day project. Yeah, that worked out. I used:

• Bowler (garage sale)
• Skulls (dollar store)
• Death figure (part of my Secret Pumpkin gift)
• Flowers (garage sale)
• Ribbon (Michael’s, $3.99)
• Purple garland (stash)
• A bunch of acrylic paint

I started by gathering possibilities, and narrowing them down.

See those flower things there? Totally on the first iteration of the bowler. The one without paint.

I thought the wonderful Death figure would look great riding on my bowler. He’s a little heavy, but it still works.  I added in skulls, a silky band from the same garage sale as the bowler, and some purple garland from my stash. I finished it. I took pictures. I hated it. I pried off everything but Death and the skulls, taped up Death’s legs, and started painting.

Unsurprisingly, I had to go over everything several times to get much vibrancy against the black velvet of the hat.

Bit by bit, the hat is painted in white, orange, purple, and a touch of green. I especially love the green on the skulls.

That purple stuff gets glued on again, and a new hatband is attached. I actually purchased this ribbon, when nothing in my stash proved satisfactory.  That’s right, I spent actual money on this.

Said ribbon got some Fray Check on the ends as a finishing touch.

Lastly, from the same box as the Makit-Bakit crystals came a bunch of silk flowers mounted on stick pens. Off they came, to be attached to my hat.  And it is festive indeed.

Sorry, this hat will not be in the raffle. It’s too delicate to ship. Also, I want to keep it.