Happy Halloween!

     Happy Halloween everyone!

     If you celebrate Halloween, I hope you have a fun night, and if you don’t, well, I still hope you have a fun night – enjoy watching a good movie or something!

     I know, Monday is typically my planner post day but I don’t have any planner pictures to share with you today. Being Halloween, I thought it would be fitting to show you something Halloween related so I have this instead:

     Totoro! Or, a badly carved, somewhat sinister and sleepy version of Totoro, to be precise. I posted a picture on my Instagram a few days ago of the pen sketch on the pumpkin but this is what is looks like carved out and lit up in the dark! I just really wanted to try carve Totoro because…actually, I don’t think I really need a reason to want a Totoro. For anyone interested in the image, I just googled ‘Totoro pumpkin’ and this is the image that came up.

     I must admit, carving Totoro was hard. There was quite a few small sections which I had trouble with and I messed up the eyes a bit. Also, he doesn’t have a nose because I couldn’t carve it with the tools I had. I did buy a cheap pumpkin carving set but the blade on the tool came out of the holder so it was really hard to use! To carve this, I ended up using the tool that came in the set (only now with no handle making not so safe to use), a random small but sharp knife my mom found in the drawer and a hacksaw blade wrapped in a handkerchief provided by my dad. But hey, after a few hours, I eventually carved something that vaguely resembles Totoro!

     Here’s a slightly more successful Halloween craft I worked on, a little box of sweets for my sister when she comes round:

     Can I just say that I really wish craft stores in Ireland would acknowledge Halloween? This black and cream striped card was the closest thing I had to Halloween themed paper. I did find these cute bat dies for really cheap but that was seriously it! Luckily I got some Halloween washi tape samples from a pen pal so I was able to dress my box up a bit.

     I can’t remember where I saw the idea for using clear plastic like that to make it look like things are floating, but when I got the bat die, it seemed like the perfect thing to do!

     For anyone interested in the box shape itself, I learned how to make it from one of Pootles YouTube videos (which you can also just find on her blog here). I absolutely love the bag in a box idea, it’s just super cute, isn’t it!

     Anyway, that’s all for me for today’s post. Don’t worry though, planner posts will resume as normal next week!