Designer Blair Stocker (who you might know from her fun and colorful blog, Wise Craft) has just posted a fantastic series of free craft project tutorials for Value Village — yes, that Value Village. Her projects take regular old thrift-store finds and upcycle them into striking, spooky Halloween decorations for your house, or for throwing a party!
Blair says: I wanted to use items that could be found any time of year at Value Village or other thrift store, not just during the Halloween season, so I resisted buying Halloween things, that just seemed too easy. The other thing I really wanted to do was to create projects that were “low sew” or even “no sew”, the idea being that anybody should be able to jump in and do these projects with materials they find for very little money.
The most effortlessly geeky project of the whole collection has to be these Dolls of the Living Dead. I’ve seen so many neglected Barbies at thrift stores and yard sales and this is a brilliant — and super-easy — zombie makeover to the rescue!
Blair mentioned that her personal favorite was the Sinister Ceramics — tchotkes painted black with sparkly rhinestone eyes glowing red. I love the grouping as a table centerpiece, very Edgar Allen Poe!
There are a dozen more projects to download from the site, from Peculiar Picture Frames (goth-inspired silhouettes) to Perfect Pumpkin Ornaments (which have a charming Nightmare Before Christmas feel to me). And of course you could put a very geeky spin on any of Blair’s ideas!
What are you thinking of making for Halloween parties this year?