FAH-bulous Halloween Countdown Calendar!!!

Ok ... I was perusing ETSY the other day for inspiration. I'm not the only one who does that right??!! Well, I came across this beauty ...

click here for source

I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it, but I wasn't loving the $65 price tag!! I knew I could make it for nothing, since I already had everything on hand.

I started with an 8 x 10 frame that I had lying around and I sanded it a bit and gave him a few coats of pumpkin orange paint. Once the orange was dry I gave him a few coats of black gloss spray paint. Waited a few hours and then lightly sanded the edges and corners so the orange would peek through.


This started out as a plain white 12 x 12 embossed piece of cardstock. I inked the edges and all over with orange and black ink.

I used some black and white, and orange scrapbook paper to give some more layers and texture. I decided it needed a little more, so I glued some rhinestones down the side.

That was the easy part ... what I did next took A LOOOONG time, like a few hours :( but only because I'm a perfectionist :)

I made 31 cards, one for each day of the countdown.

The first 30 cards are white with black numbers, and the 31st card is black with white. I used my CRICUT and SCAL to cut out every number and all of the little embellishments. That's what took so long, because I had to pick out the fonts and search the web for the little embellishments. I continued the inked edges on each of the cards as well. The embellishments are bats, a cat and a moon, a crow, skulls with rhinestone eyes, polka dots and random Halloween-ish words.


I used a plain binder clip to hold all the cards.

I tied some coordinating ribbons and a boa to the clip and added another rhinestone ;)


I cut the point off a white thumbtack and hot glued it to the paper. I can't decide if I want to mod podge all of this to the glass or not. So, right now, it's just sitting in front of the glass in the frame.


After I started taking pictures of the finished project I realized that I wanted to add a little something more. So, I added another little rhinestone eyed skeleton to a round metal ringed tag and hung it on the clip.


Here she is all dressed up and ready to strut her stuff!!


I wanted to have the option to hang it on the wall as well, so I added this ribbon and made the bow and attached a few feathers with a bottle cap and a little rhinestone.


After I made the bow to hang on the wall I thought it would be cute on the frame and I'm not gonna lie, I dig it this way too!! So many different options!!!

So, my finished project is a bit different from the inspiration piece. But considering it cost me NOTHING, I'm not going to complain. Beside, my cards are all hand inked and each number and embellishment is cut out and glued on. The original cards are machine printed, they are GORGEOUS but mine are a bit more personal :)

Anyway, let me know what you think. And if you are diggin' this beauty as much as I do, its in my ETSY store!!!!


I'm linking up to these AWESOME partays!!!