Spraypaint a Pumpkin Through a Doily

Well, at least it's not silver this time

Using a paper doily and spray paint to make a fancy pumpkin. by joanne

This pin goes to Indulgy, which is an inferior version of Pinterest.  That's annoying - but what's worse is that it doesn't even go to the correct Indulgy post, it goes to a black pumpkin with silver glitter on it.

Okay, so that's enough to qualify for a post here, but then there is the pin's description, which is also erroneous.  This pumpkin project is actually from Better Homes and Gardens, and they did not use spray paint; they used a stencil brush and paint.

So there you go.  

"Fangs" for coming to my party

Spray paint some dollar store fangs for great card holders with person's name on them and/or what the food on a buffet is. 

Again with the silver spray paint.  It's nearly as popular as glow sticks.  If someone finds a way to combine silver spray paint and glow sticks, they'll be able to take over the world.  Or at least the corner of the world occupied by Pinterest crafters (a not inconsiderable portion).

On to this particular pin.  The picture here is not showing cheap plastic fangs that someone painted.  These are from the Pottery Barn.  They don't appear to carry them any longer.

I'm not saying you couldn't do this, but I am saying that what you're seeing in the picture are professionally produced silver fangs, not Dollar Store fangs that someone gussied up on her own.

If you can't duplicate this with silver spray paint, you might try painting the teeth black and then using silver Rub n' Buff.

Chrome Pumpkins

Shiny!

Chrome metallic spray painted dollar store pumpkins!

These look great.  Very shiny, very metallic.  Similar to the Mercury Glass Pumpkins that I posted about before.  Silver pumpkins are apparently very "in" this year.

Lets get down to brass (silver?) tacks:  This picture is misleading.  It was obviously taken soon after these pumpkins were sprayed.  After the paint cures, the shine is diminished:

Live Love DIY

That's pretty much it - if you use metallic spray paint on Dollar Store (or probably any) plastic or foam pumpkins, they will be a little dull.  Still pretty, but the pin should use this picture because it's more realistic.  

Masks With Glow Sticks

Hint: Not Glow Sticks

masks + glow sticks = great Halloween inspiration

Nope.  Not glow sticks.  It's never glow sticks.  

I feel like Dr. House.  "It's never Lupus."  I mean, how many times has a glow-in-the-dark pin ACTUALLY been done with glow sticks?

This looks like a case of someone either making a bad guess as to how this picture was achieved, or they actually did read through the description and decided that glow sticks would probably work just as well, so they put that in their description.

These masks are being illuminated from within by electric tea lights:

From Craftster

If you want to see how they did it, there's the link.  It's not hard, but it's not glow sticks.  Anyone who looks at the pin should be able to tell by the radiance and color, but you never know what people will believe. 

Someone should try it with glow sticks and post their picture.

Glass Block Jack O'Lantern

Talk about the missing link...

Square glass votive from Michaels filled with string lights (battery operated ) felt cut-outs for the face and wrapped in orange tulle and topped off with a black bow and black pipe cleaners, corkscrewed. CUTE! :)

A Clear glass block from Michael's or any craft store, paint or glue black fabric on for the face, add battery lights or a candle, then a bit of tied up orange tulle or chiffon.

light block jack-o-lantern. Clear glass blocks at Michael's or any craft store.

This looks like a great do-it-yourself project.  And it very well may be a great project, but the pins with this picture (so far) do not lead to a tutorial.  The links in those pins lead to....nowhere.   

For the first pin I found, the link returned "Blog not found." 

For the second pin I found, the link returned "Page not found." 

Same result for the third as the second.  It's as if this picture is cursed!  

Even when I eventually tracked this picture down to an Etsy seller, that page disappeared after I bookmarked it for use in this post.  I'm guessing that Etsy's new business plan was unsavory to this seller and she decided to move her shop.  She's set up at 805 Design Co now, if you're interested in her creations.

Those broken links bother me.  They bother me because I suspect that those bloggers are the type of people who take pictures they don't own and pretend to have done a project that they have never actually attempted.  If that's the case, then I'm glad their sites/pages are gone.

I mean, what happens?  You do a Google search, find something that looks cool, and then just pass it off as your own with a little creative writing?  That sucks.

Plus, they're just wrong.  That is not a "votive" (nor is it a "votive holder").  It's not using black fabric or felt cut-outs for the face.  

That is an acrylic block with vinyl on it.  

Let's have a little more honesty in our online crafts.  I'm not saying it would be impossible to reverse-engineer this project, but give 805 Design some credit for coming up with it and also creating a picture that apparently appealed to everyone.  Not everyone can photograph their creations in a way that inspires others.  Not everyone can come up with the idea for a craft like this, so it doesn't matter how easy it looks to you - you didn't think of it.  Give the person who DID think of it their due.

Okay, rant over.  Have fun making your acrylic block jack o'lanterns.  Me personally?  I'd go with the thin acrylic block, battery powered LEDs, vinyl mouth and eyes, orange tulle, and some decorative Halloween ribbon.  Maybe a few black and orange pipe cleaners wrapped around a pencil to coil them nicely.

Glowing Bubbles

Not to burst your bubble, but this isn't going to yield glowing orbs of soap and glycerin

Cut open glow sticks & pour them into bubble solution. Glow in the dark bubbles. Summer nights here we come!

There are a few reasons why this pin doesn't work as described.  First, some kinds of glow stick solution mixed into bubble solution change the properties of the bubble solution so that you cannot make bubbles with it.  Second, even if you manage to get bubbles, they are unlikely to have enough of the glow solution to make visibly glowing bubbles.  The bubbles are just too thin to contain enough glow solution to appear to the naked eye.

Here's a video of someone attempting to mix a glowstick and bubble solution.  They did get the bubbles to form, but they don't appear to be glowing.   They very well may show up with special photography equipment in a very dark room, but to the naked eye and the camera they used, nothing showed up.  However, the experimenters did note that when the bubbles landed and popped, the pool of solution did glow.

Finally, the picture that is on this pin is NOT of someone dumping an opened glow stick into a jar of bubble solution.  This picture is of someone attempting to use Super Miracle Bubbles® GLOW FUSION™ Bubble Solution.  This product is similar to a glow stick solution, in that you mix the parts together to get a chemical reaction that causes the glow.

However, even this solution, which is designed to create glowing bubbles, failed to produce any visible-in-the-dark bubbles.  Those people had the same experience with the invisible bubbles popping and then the solution from the popped bubble would be concentrated enough for the glow to become visible.

Maybe the best way to get bubbles that you can see in the dark would be to get some highlighters, mix their contents with bubble solution, and blow bubbles under a black light.

Word to the wise - glow sticks have a glass capsule inside of them; this is what you break to release the activator.  If you cut open a glowing stick, you risk also releasing glass shards.  Be careful.

"Glow in the dark" drinks. Again. Moar.

If you drink this, and then go to the bathroom, and there is a black light, what happens?

#glow #drink #spooky #halloween

Glow in the dark drinks

Again with the glowing drinks.  Which don't really "glow in the dark" so much as they fluoresce under black lights.  If this stuff really glowed in the dark, you would NOT want to ingest it.

The secret here is that tonic water (which contains quinine) reacts like this when you hit it with a black light.  That's it.  Oh, and I think that the starts here are Jell-O Jigglers made with tonic water as well.

Tonic water isn't something everyone enjoys - it's bitter.  So if you try this, maybe go easy on the tonic water; it shouldn't take much to get the desired reaction.

Say What?

Looks delicious

Add paint and glue to dryer lint.

I had to include this one, even though it's not false or even misleading.  What it is, is incomplete.  Add paint and glue to dryer lint?  WHY?  Who is doing this?  Why are they wearing gloves and mixing up paint and dryer lint in a perfectly good bowl?  

I had to know.

Turns out, this is a recipe for fake moss.  You mix up some green paint with your lint, and then while it's still tacky you press it to whatever you're trying to add moss to (tombstones, statues, creepy trees).  

So there you go.  If you're doing Halloween props and you need some fake moss, grab some dryer lint and some paint and go to town.  

Milk Jug Ghosts

To be fair, it can be really hard to tell the difference between electricity and candles.

Line your driveway or walk way with these cute milk jug ghost. Draw a face on the jug with sharpie, cut out the bottom but make sure it can still stand, put fake or real candles (scented if you want) on the ground, light it on your driveway of walkway, carefully set your jugs on the ground, and you have milk jug ghost!!!

Whoever decided to make this pin decided to upload a picture directly to Pinterest rather than linking to the source.  Which is here, and clearly defines the lights inside those jugs as a "string of 50 clear low-wattage holiday lights" just in case the photo, which clearly shows the string of lights inside the jugs, isn't enough for you.

The way this pinner is suggesting you do it, you will not only not get this look, you'll also be asking for melted plastic and possible fires (but scented fires, so does that make it better?).

Halloween Window Clings In Dollar Store Frames

What could be simpler?  Or less accurate?

Use dollar store frames with window clings! Could use different clings for each holiday!

Well, these are not technically Dollar Store frames; they came from Walmart (close enough, though, right?).  That's not what's wrong here.  What's wrong is that those are not window clings.  Those are vinyl.  I'm not saying window clings are a bad idea, but they sure would not look as nice as that vinyl.  And good luck reusing vinyl for different holidays.  

Here's the source of the project, and she has created a very nice PDF of instructions for people who are interested in creating this look.

If you can find the right size of window clings and you don't mind those clear borders that all window clings seem to have, more power to you.  If I was doing it, vinyl would definitely be the way to go.

Mercury Glass Pumpkins

Look closely. No, even more closely.  Have you ever grown a pumpkin with a metal stem?

'Looking glass' spray can transform pumpkins into these gorgeous centerpieces! Use a white spray first to get the best effect. Oh, I'm soooo doing this!!! I'll use fake pumpkins from the craft store so they'll last longer

designs that inspire to create your perfect home: 20 Halloween pumpkin craft idea: Easy last minute!!

Things Crafty Mixed-Media art crafts sewing journalling Videos Podcast Make Your Own Mercury Glass Item | Things Crafty crafting videos tutorials reviews books products demos and Podcast

These are all great.  One of the pins quoted above came from Ruffles and Such, where she wrote, "But how is this for a DIY project? Spray paint (or silver leaf) those pumpkins and look how glamorous they can look! I could really get into that kind of pumpkin."

I'm not sure what kind of farmer's markets or pumpkin patches these people are going to, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the pumpkins in that picture are not real pumpkins that have been spray painted or covered in silver leaf.  Nor are they Dollar Store pumpkins.  And they definitely are not someone's homemade Mercury Glass pumpkins.  These are Pottery Barn pumpkins.  The only way this is an "easy last minute" pumpkin craft idea is if your idea of a craft is running to Pottery Barn.  And you know, if that's your thing, I'm not gonna judge.

For the rest of you who want a little more "Do It Yourself" in your pumpkin craft project, you have a few options.

You can try to use Dollar Store pumpkins:

It's a fairly inexpensive way to go, but I think we can all agree that this is not the look most people are going for.

You can use looking glass spraypaint on the inside of a glass pumpkin, and you'll get something like this:

Not bad!  A little more expensive than the Dollar Store route, but closer to the original desired look.

Or you could break all the rules of looking glass paint, and use it on the OUTSIDE of a ceramic pumpkin:

Folks, I think we have a winner!  It may not be shabby-chic enough for some, but I think that's a really nice effect and a lovely addition to anyone's Fall decor.