Saturday, October 8, 2011

Halloween Swap Gifts for spookycuddles

Spookycuddles from Ravelry received her Halloween swap package from me!

There were requirements for this swap:
  1. Make a Halloween decoration/decorative item (ornament, pumpkin, amigurumi, wall hanging, etc.).
  2. Make a wearable item (jewelry, hat, scarf, scrunchie, etc.).
  3. Make a treat bag with or without treats.
  4. Make a paper item (ATC card, postcard, notecard, origami, etc.).
  5. Make a Halloween kitchen / dining room item (dishcloth, hot pad, candy dish, etc).
  6. At least one item needs to be made using fiber (knitted, crochet, felted, woven, etc).
  7. At least one item needs to use a recycled material.

For her treat bag, I made her a nice size Kool Aid tote bag using Halloween colors: green, purple, and orange.  There are more pictures of the bag below.  I love the picture frame.  I used glow-in-the-dark paint on top of the purple paint, and 3 sizes of google eye.   That was for the decorative item requirement. 
The kitchen items are all candy corn themed: a knitted dish towel that buttons on a drawer handle, a knitted dishcloth, and a crochet plarn scrubby.  The wearable items are a pair of earrings and a matching necklace made out of plastic bread tags.  The jewelry and the scrubby go along with the recycled requirement, and the other kitchen items go with the fiber requirement.  We were also partners in another Halloween swap just for ornaments, so I made her the bat and the candy corn ornaments.  The bat used sparkly yarn, because she loves glitter and sparkle.  Just for fun I included some Halloween pencils, spider rings, a black cat parachute toy, and some Peanut Gang activity pages.  You can also see the Jack-O-Lantern artist trading card that I drew on watercolor paper.
I just love the jewelry, so I made a pair for myself.
I also gave her a stamp that said "I love vampires," because we are both Twilight fans.
The google eyes really add a little something something to the ornaments. 
The wooden "Happy Halloween" is actually a magnet.  You can see the parachuting black cat and a black spider ring in this picture.  I gave her an orange Kool Aid notebook with a paper bead tassel.  There is a cork witch (knitted and made using a wine cork).  I put a bunch of the items in the toilet paper tube treat containers, which I painted.  Most of these items meet the paper requirement of the swap.  I found a really cute pumpkin face kit at the dollar store and included it in the package.  I believe it makes a silly witch face.
I included a 2nd ATC (artist trading card) in her package.  The wreath ornament was made by crocheting around a plastic bottle ring.  Then I glued Halloween sequence on it.  The card was made using fun stickers.
The pattern for this ornament is:
- Chain 20 stitches.
- Take a plastic bottle ring and half double crochet around it.
- Join with a slip stitch.
- Triple crochet twice in every stitch around, and join with a slip stitch.
- Chain 15 to 20 stitches, and tie to the other chain length.
- Then just add accessories.
Here is the free candy corn pattern from Lion Brand.  I just added a chain stitch to one corner for the loop and glued on the google eyes and black yarn smile.  I kept two of these for myself, because they are just to darn cute. 
The bat pattern came from a crochet magazine.
Here are more pictures of the Kool Aid tote bag.
It has 2 pockets: a small one on the back/front inside, and a full pocket on one of the sides.
The plarn scrubby pattern is just simply crocheting a basic circle:
- chain 2
- crochet 8 times into the 2nd chain from the hook
- single crochet twice in every stitch = 16 sts
- 2 sc in next stitch, 1 sc in next stitch, repeat = 24 sts
-  2 sc in next stitch, 2 sc in next 2 stitches, repeat = 32 sts
- repeat until it is the size that you want.
I used 1 yellow newspaper bag, 1 or 2 orange newspaper bags, and one white shopping bag to make the plarn.
This ATC was made by watercolor painting on watercolor paper, then drawing on it with a thin black sharpie.  The paint is a little washed out in this photo.
To make this frame, I painted 2 coats of purple paint on a wooden frame, then I painted 1 coat of glow-in-the-dark paint.  Then I glued 3 sizes of google eyes on it.  Next I wrapped a ribbon around it, and tied a bow on one side.  The ribbon was then glued in the back. Next I glued the wooden piece to the ribbon.
This is actually my cork witch.  I forgot to add the pine needle broom stick to spookycuddle's witch.  I just used my modified version of this Korknisse pattern to make her.  My modified pattern is just using smaller needles and adding a few more rows to the hat and body, and of course adding hair.

Spookycuddles said that she like everything.  I'm so glad.  She has become a friend, and I love swapping with her.  We both love this holiday a lot, and I'm glad that I could add to her ever growing decorations. 

2 comments:

  1. Wow so many cool things and all with the Halloween theme. I bet Spookycuddles loves all the items as she is such a Halloween-themed person. Now she has tons of new decorations and much more.

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  2. Spookycuddles is incredibly lucky!!!

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