Christmas at ShellHawk's Creations

 It's time for ornaments and pretty serving plates at the ShellHawk's Creations Etsy store!

These make great hostess gifts, stocking stuffers for those who just can't have enough Christmas ornaments, or fun Secret Santa gifts.

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Shop Small Saturday!

Remember that in all the furor of getting the best deal from the big box store, there are craftspeople hand making one-of-a-kind gifts for you and your whole Christmas list, giving you the opportunity to buy from the maker! There are small shop owners in your area who have just the thing you need, too. Making your purchases locally will make their Christmas more successful and keep their doors open so you can continue to buy from them in the coming years.

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Monsterpappa

The wonderful work of Monsterpappa!

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Work Space

It's where some of my heart lives....

Guest Post: DIY Halloween Decorating by Jane Blanchard of Modernize.Com

Thanks to Jane Blanchard of Modernize.com for sending over some alternative decorating ideas!

Much like other holidays, setting up for Halloween can be expensive. The Halloween decoration industry is a multi-million dollar enterprise and since retailers only sell Halloween decorations in the fall, they are aiming to make as much money as possible from their customers.

However, you do have an alternative to boring prepackaged Halloween decorations - you can make them yourself! Not only will you save a pretty penny creating your own do it yourself Halloween decorations you can include the entire family in the process to really get into the Halloween spirit.

Upside Down Bats For Indoor or Outdoor Use

These bats will remind visitors to your home of a creepy bat cave...Batman not included. These construction paper bats are easy to make and add just the right ambiance to your indoor or outdoor Halloween decorating area.

To start out you find a bat shaped template which you can find pretty much anywhere on the web- basically just a black bat printed on a white piece of paper. You then cut the black part out and you have your template. Whatever template you choose will have creases that you will fold over which you hold in place using masking tape. The Halloween.com bats and Martha Stewart Hanging Bats templates are both very popular for this purpose. Once you finish creating the bats using your black construction paper go ahead and hole punch the bottom of the bat and put a Halloween themed string through to hang them up. Many people like black or orange but feel free to go wild.

Via Marthastewart.com

Indoor/Outdoor Halloween Gravestones

What better way to get guests and trick or treaters in the Halloween spirit than with a creepy crawly set of tombstones on your front lawn? These tombstones are very DIY-friendly and they allow you to show a little bit of your personal humor while creating an unsettling and very Halloween vibe.

The first step is to get some spare wood (try the discount section of your local home improvement store) and have it cut into a tombstone shape. After this you may decorate to your heart's content.

Lots of people like putting some grey paint in paper mache to color the gravestone and then using either sharpie or black paint to imprint the names. Oftentimes people will use humorous sayings on the tombstones such as the name of a rival sports team or the end of a waning fad.

Via Pinterest

Carved Pumpkins

This is the most common but not necessarily the easiest DIY Halloween decoration. The nice part about DIY pumpkin carving is the fact that you can repeat this decoration year after year likely improving your skills each year. It is also a great activity for the entire family; even if you have young kids who aren’t quite ready to handle the knife, they can help by pulling out all of the ooey gooey pumpkin guts and they will have a blast. 

It is a good idea to pick up a decent quality pumpkin carving set and some carving templates if you want to go beyond the traditional jack-o-lantern. Just put the template over the pumpkin and carve away. There are no ends to what you can achieve carving pumpkins so feel free to experiment.

For more design ideas and inspiration, head to Modernize.com.

Nightmares

Sculptures by Matthew J. Levin. More of his art here.

364 Days left!

Art by Unkle Pigors of Toxictoons.

I didn't take many pictures this year, but I do have a little video I hope to get to in a few days! Hope your Halloween was wonderful!