A few days of Halloween

I'm not big on Halloween, but this year I've gotten sucked into the Halloween spirit via both paper and fabric. I started by cutting a few tags from my friend Kathy's old Sizzix. Since I only wanted one side of the tags, I cut the felt and paper into strips I could manage in the die.


It didn't take long until I had enough tags for both my paper and fabric collages. For the paper collage, I used a double sheet of cardboard weight I glued together. In fact, I had this background sitting around since the beginning of the year when I made several of these for One World One Heart. After I decided on a design, I moved on to


the fabric, which I tried to match closely with the tissue paper and thread backing I had previously made.


It was time to bring out the colored Sharpies and 91% rubbing alcohol to color the white muslin.


I used all the green Sharpies and my only blue Sharpie for the background.


I added the alcohol, and as has happened previously,


I got way too much alcohol on the fabric. I used even more muslin cleaning up the mess, but I got some nice blue fabric (with a hint of brown) as a result.


As the fabric dried,


I decided to make a cross from a rubber eraser. I have a bunch of these erasers I bought last year at Big Lots. I think they were two for $1.00 at that time, so I stocked up on them, hoping I would find my carving tools after my basement supplies had been returned.


No such luck! It's great that these were straight lines, because they were



relatively difficult to cut, even with my arthritic friendly paring knife.



I tried several times to get the cross right. I had to carve it at least twice more before I got it right.


Finally! I was pleased with the really irregular way the cross turned out, too.


I was a bit disappointed with the design because I had wanted a tree in the cemetery, but realized after I had everything in place, that there was no room for it.


I was marginally happier with the headstones in the fabric cemetery. I even added a quilted moon. In fact, this is the first time I have ever tried to quilt a quiltlet that wasn't


just a bunch of haphazard patterns like what is on the back. Now all I have to do is even up the quiltlet with the backing, add a hanger, and it will be ready to display in my rather under decorated Halloween home.

Do you celebrate Halloween?