There were some delightful Halloween contributions to our Halloween Shoebox today--the first one actually happening on the show. Vivian Peritts, our talented guest who made the spooky Halloween Haunted House, was wearing a shirt that all of us admired--black with many, many eyeballs printed on it (
figure A). It turned out that the eyeballs were not printed on but rather ironed on by Vivian. It seems that she had a plain black shirt and then found some black fabric printed with eyeballs (
figure B). She bought some of the fabric, ironed fusible webbing to the back and then cut out many, many eyeballs and ironed them to her shirt. The effect was perfect for Halloween...and even better when the lights were off because the eyes all glowed in the dark!
A very funny note arrived some time ago from Sharon Miller of St. Clair Shores, Mich., who had seen one of our Halloween shows back in 2000 and loved the little lampshade "witches" we made. She figured that if I made one in 10 minutes on the show she could certainly make three in 30 minutes--and soon discovered that that was her first mistake. It took her longer than that to try to round up all the materials. In fact, by the time she had them all together, Halloween had come and gone. However, miracle of miracles, when Halloween 2001 rolled around, lo and behold she actually found all the materials she had purchased the year before and finally DID make the little lampshade witches! (figure C) One she gave to her daughter-in-law, one to a friend and one she kept for herself. The picture of the little Halloween creation standing in the corner next to a pumpkin was very cute and now she will have her for Halloweens to come (figure D).
Also in the mail came a couple of clever Halloween cards from Bonnie Willey of Chappel, Neb. Bonnie has contributed cards to the Shoebox before and we are always delighted with them. Bonnie prints out her cards on her computer and then enhances them by adding dimensional embellishments. In today's case she outlined the black cat on the card with black dimensional paint and then made a small pin by painting cutout wooden pieces (pumpkins, a ghost and a little cat) that she glued together in a pleasing arrangement and backed with a pin backing (figure E).
The second card had candy corn, which she also painted with dimensional paint, and the attached pin was made of candy corn-shaped wooden pieces that she painted and added a pin backing to (figure F). The pins and the cards were all beautifully and cleverly done. Bonnie also mentioned in a note that when she mails her 3-D cards, she always puts them in a padded envelope or wraps them with bubble wrap.
Susan Hoornstra of Burlington, Iowa, sent in a delightful Halloween idea--although she did not claim first rights. Susan stated that she had seen the little orange-slice pumpkins at a luncheon, and it was one of those "the woman who made them had seen them at so-and-so's who had learned how from so-and-so, etc."...so we have no idea whom to credit with the original idea but appreciate the fact that Susan sent it in (figure G).
To make a pumpkin (you will want to make an entire pumpkin patch, I'm sure), tear off a piece of plastic wrap and place it on top of a 1/2-cup measuring cup. Push it down in the center and then place a single orange slice in the middle. One by one, add about seven more orange slices around the outside of the first one (I added eight more) (figure H). When they are all firmly in place, pull up the plastic, lifting the slices out of the measuring cup. Twist the plastic, wrap with a short length of green floral tape, and cut off the excess plastic (figure I). A miniature pumpkin! Make a bunch.
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