Hello Everyone!
Though I’ve been rather quiet about it on this blog, I’ve actually worked on quite a few projects throughout this semester! Everything I’ve done was supposed to be displayed on here but I unfortunately didn’t get around to posting anything until today! Fair warning; this post is going to be massive! With 7 projects, 44 pictures, and tons of explanations and write-ups, this post is going to be a lot to take in!
Now I’m not crazy, I know this is absolutely no way to run a blog! If I really wanted to capture the public’s attention I know I’d need to separate these projects into several different posts and release them each a week apart, preferably during the next Fall season since most of these crafts have to do with Fall. I would totally have done this! Unfortunately, I ran out of time. Seeing as this blog will be graded for my Book of Mormon class, I need to put up everything I’ve done this semester now. Was it smart to do it this way? Not really. Am I happy I did it this way? No freaking way. Do I have to do it this way? Yup. So, let’s begin!
Monster Silhouettes
One of the first projects I did during my first semester at BYU was my monster silhouettes! I got the idea from this pin!
 
For this project I used:
- 3 Foam Boards
- Pencil
- Sharpie
- X-Acto Knife
- Mod Podge
- Foam Brush
- Black Spray Paint (I needed way more than what’s pictured there! I really needed two normal sized spray paint cans to do 3 monsters)
- Colored Tissue Paper
- Newspaper (Not pictured)
I started out by drawing the outlines of my monsters with a pencil.
All three of my monster outlines
Then I used a sharpie to darken the lines I needed to cut.
Be careful when cutting! I kept switching to the front and back of the foam boards to cleanly cut through the entire board. While I was cutting on the back side I accidentally chopped off the tip of this little guy’s tail!
Next I took my monsters outside, laid out a bunch of newspaper on the grass and began spray painting! Be careful not to spray paint too many coats onto the board all at once. It’s best to do a single coat and then wait a few minutes before doing another one.
After I finished spray-painting my monsters, I got my colored tissue paper and cut little squares to put behind the eye and mouth holes. After using mod podge on the rims of the eyes and mouth, I stuck the tissue paper on and was able to rip the excess bits off cleanly and easily.
This is what my monsters looked like when I was done!
This is what they looked like from outside at night. I apologize for the poor picture quality!
Glittery Falling Leaves Garland
My next project was a beautiful falling leaves garland found on House of Jade Interiors!
While not difficult, this project was very messy! I had originally planned to make two garlands for my room, but by the end of the first one I had had enough of glitter So, I stuck with just one.
For this project I used:
- Mod Podge (not the glue in the picture)
- Thin Brown Ribbon
- A Foam Brush
- A Hole Puncher
- Fake Autumn Leaves
- Gold, Orange, and Brown Glitter
- Paper Plates (Not Pictured)
* For some reason I had black spray paint in the picture, but it was not used for this project
For this project I used the table in my hall’s lounge as a work station. One one plate, I would first coat my leaves in mod podge on both sides. Using two plates per color of glitter, I would then place the mod podged leaf onto the empty glitter plate and dump glitter from the other plate on top of it. I would then switch the leaf to the other plate and repeat the process until the leaf was completely covered, then I would set the leaf aside to dry.
At the end of this process I ended up with 20 leaves.
Here they all are tied into a garland.
Here’s the finished product hanging across our entryway. Again, I apologize for the poor quality image.
I had meant to get two big brown bows to paste to each end of the garland, but I never got around to doing that unfortunately. Maybe next year 😉
Dorm Hall Boos
At the beginning of the semester I joined the Hall Council in my dorm. As part of the council I came up with the fun idea to do Halloween Boos for our hall!
To start out, I made this cute little instructions sheet and adjusted the rules to make it fit in with dorm life. If anyone else were to do this however, I would suggest starting out with two boo buckets. 1 bucket would have been fine if everyone had really only taken 2 days to pass the boo along, but unfortunately college students get busy and some took longer than others to get the boo going again. I ended up making a second boo bucket in the middle of October.
The “We’ve Been Booed!” sign mentioned in the instructions
I filled the first boo bucket with two of these adorable Jack-O-Lantern Fruit Cups! These oranges were actually not that hard to make! I unfortunately never took a picture of what my Jack-O-Lantern oranges looked like with fruit inside, but just imagine them filled with blackberries and grapes and you’ll have an idea of what they looked like. They were so cute!
I also added these Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies with this Pumpkin Spice Frosting to the first boo bucket. They were delicious! I couldn’t keep my hands off of them!
Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of the first completed bucket. I was in a rush to get the boos started so everyone would be sure to get one before the end of October.
I did however, manage to get a picture of the second bucket I started at the middle of October! For this bucket I just put in two bags of candy. Not the most fun or creative, but I was in a rush and was definitely not in the most creative of moods at that time.
Lounge Halloween Decorations
Two weeks before Halloween, it was announced that the David John Hall would be having a lounge decorations contest! Each Hall council would plan and decorate their own lounge for Halloween and then all the RAs would vote on which lounge was best.
I can’t take a lot of credit for this project, I did help plan the decorations and put a few of them up, but for the most part I wasn’t too involved. I was gone the weekend that the hall finished putting them up.
None of these pictures are great quality. I had planned to take better ones later, but it never happened. Sorry!
The pumpkin in the rightmost corner was carved by me! I actually stacked it on top of another slightly bigger pumpkin with fallen leaves pasted all over it to make the two pumpkins look more like an owl! It was really cute! Unfortunately, I must have deleted the pictures because I can’t find them anywhere 😦
Zombie Bride Costume
I had been planning this costume since August but didn’t start until the middle of October! I followed this tutorial on YouTube.
To make this costume I used:
- A Vintage Wedding Dress (I found it on Etsy)
- Fake Blood
- Black Dye
- Black Tea Bags
- Seam Ripper
- Newspapers
- A Large Plastic Bucket
- A Plastic Knife for Blood Splatters
- A Plastic Cup to hold the Fake Blood
- Black Ink Pads
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Since there are so many pictures for this project, I compiled them all into a slideshow. Each picture shows a different step in the process of making this dress.
I started out by dying the whole dress in a large bucket of hot water with 50 Lipton Black Tea Bags.
After letting the dress soak overnight, I hung it out to dry and then proceeded to add about 3/4’s a packet of black dye to the bucket of water.
Once the dress was dry enough, I dipped the bottom part of the dress into the water and let it soak for about 4 hours. The end result of this black dye turned the dress more of a blue than black, but that didn’t bother me. To help give the dress more of a dirty muddy look, I used a black ink pad to blot the bottom of dress.
Days later, I brought the dress down to the basement lounge in my hall. There was a long table down there that fit my entire dress on it.
To begin, I spread newspaper all over the table, and then laid my dress as flat as I could on top of it. Then, I poured my fake blood into a cup, added the remainder of my black dye powder to it, and proceeded to splatter blood on the dress with a plastic fork.
It didn’t take long to splatter the dress. What did take a long time was waiting for that blood to dry before moving on to the other side!
Overall, I’m glad I did this costume. I didn’t end up getting any good pictures of me in it, but I bet I can get some better ones next year 🙂
Christmas Kentucky Butter Cake
Last week someone on my Facebook newsfeed shared this Kentucky Butter Cake recipe, saying it was the best pound cake ever! I was really craving a good cake at the time and this one sounded divine, so naturally I had to try it!
To make the cake more Christmas-y I added little droplets of red and green food coloring to the cake mix and then swirled them around with a butter knife.
The recipe called for a buttery vanilla glaze to be spread on the bottom of the cake as it cooled in it’s pan. It definitely was the best part of the cake in my opinion! I just really brought the whole thing together!
So pretty, and so, so yummy!
End Comments
That was a really long post! If you really did read all of that, good on you! If you didn’t, I can’t say I blame you! Posts this long and cluttered are really hard to read, I promise I won’t ever do a post like this again!
Whether you read the whole thing or just little portions, thanks for taking a look!
Until next time,
See ya!
Life a la Lexie 