Love & Sugar Kisses: {Halloween Guest Blogger} Valerie from Occasionally Crafty

I've got another fantastic guest for you today...Valerie from Occasionally Crafty! Valerie is a super crafty mama who makes all sorts of creative crafts and shares the tutorials on her blog! From home decor to great gifts, Valerie has so many great ideas! And if you love digital scrapbooking, then you will definitely want to check out her Scrappin' Wednesday features where she shows off her beautiful scrapbook pages!!

I'm so thrilled that Valerie is here to share an ADORABLE Halloween craft that you are going to LOVE!

Hi, I'm Valerie from Occasionally Crafty! I'm a SAHM to three energetic kids, and a book-loving, piano-teaching, RA-enduring crafter who just tries to make fun, cute things-- occasionally. At my blog, you'll find fun home decor, gifts, simple sewing projects, and seasonal crafts and decor.

I had a lot of fun putting together a fun Halloween project for you. I came up with this cute Halloween Embroidery Hoop Wall Hanging.

I was inspired by Riley Blake's Halloween Fabrics. They are just so darn cute. I picked out some of my favorite characters to use in my Halloween decorating. Let me tell you- I am not so much into the ghoulish side of Halloween decor. I like to keep it fun and cute, and these little guys fit the bill.

Anyway, here's what you need:

3 5 inch embroidery hoops

1/2 yard of fabric- solids or small prints work best

A printer and paper (or a really good eye!)

Felt- I used craft felt in white, black, and green

Fine-tip marker or fabric pen/paint

Hot glue

Scissors

A quick note- I kind of worked backwards from what might be logical to you. I put my fabric in the hoops first, then decorated them. You might want to go the opposite way. It doesn't really matter, as long as you get your decorated fabric centered in your hoop.

1. Cut fabric to fit your embroidery hoop. You should have enough to pull it taut, and have extra sticking out on all sides. Do this for all three hoops.

When you like how it looks, cut off the excess. I place my scissors right against the hoop and cut in a circle.

Finish up by drawing a line of hot glue along the edge of the fabric to seal it and hold it in place.

2. Print your embellishment patterns and cut them out. I found some .jpg images online, so just do a google search for what you want.

3. Trace your images onto felt and cut out.

4. Adhere to the fabric using hot glue or fabric glue. I'm a little bit of a lazy crafter, so I just hot glued them on.

5. I used a ruler to mark the lines on my mummy.

And don't forget his little green face!

6. Outline details with fine-tip marker or fine tipped bottle of fabric paint.

7. Add words to your fabric by freezer paper stenciling- or you could even use letter stickers or regular stencils. A great tutorial for freezer paper stenciling can be found here.

8. Determine how far apart you want your hoops to hang, and cut 2 strips of ribbon to match, leaving an extra 1/2 inch for gluing. Glue to the inside back of each embroidery hoop to connect them.