Vintage Halloween

I've always loved the look of vintage decor ~ especially around the holidays ~ and thought I'd try my hand at a little something as Halloween is right around the corner and because a good friend of mine has a big Halloween bash every year and goes all out in her decorations. This will be for her!

A couple of months ago, my local Tall Mouse craft store was going out of business and I found a frame there for a couple of dollars; one of those brown paper ones that are just begging to be altered in some way. Originally, I was going to do something with all of the Starbucks cards I've collected but they're all still sitting in my drawer waiting for a different rainy day.

First thing I did was to go through all of the scrapbook papers I have and select some that looked somewhat vintage and would be appropriate for Halloween (colors and such). Then I cut them into squares and followed that up by painting the outside edges and inside of the frame bronze.




Once I had all of my squares cut and the paint had dried, I started decoupaging them onto my prepared frame using Mod Podge. Any finish will work but I used gloss-lustre to glue down and to cover the entire frame (twice) when I finished with the squares.





After all of my squares were in place, I went over them with some brown ink (color used was Close to Cocoa), gave that a couple minutes to dry and then put on my two coats of Mod Podge. Then I added some book binding tape from 7gypsies that I've had forEVer all around the edge (with just a bit to spare - woo hoo!)



When I finished that, I went trolling around on Google for vintage Halloween images and found an adorable one of some little trick-or-treaters. I saved the image and fussed around with it at Picnik until I had it just right. Then I printed it out, trimmed it down and adhered it to a background that I put in the center of the frame (used one of the papers I'd chosen for my little squares), Mod Podged the heck out of it and sprinkled a bit of clear glitter over the image. Et Voila!


Then I thought it needed a little something more so I added a bit of black ribbon.


Then I was happy with it and I know my friend will enjoy it!