Today’s Guest: Just Make Stuff

Hi there…my name is Nora Griffin and I have a little crafty blog called Just Make Stuff. It is wonderfully surreal to be here on Eighteen25 today. Last year my son, McIntosh, and I were devouring Spooktacular September in preparation for a pumpkin carving party he wanted to host for his friends…to get to take part in it this year is super-duper exciting.

Okay, let’s get down to crafty business. So Mac is a super cool teenager now and there probably aren’t too many costumed and trick-or-treating Halloween’s left for our little family. With that in mind, I thought it’d be a good time to make a little Halloween memory board to remember all the costumes from over the years.

I purchased a large frame (I used a 16”x20” frame), a sheet of galvanized metal, and obsessed over the perfect orange colored paint. My husband Sean cut the metal to fit into the frame and suggests wearing leather gloves because it is easy to get cut when working with the rough edges, draw your lines with a sharpie marker and cut about a ¼” outside of the line to leave yourself a little room to make mistakes. Then you can easily go back and trim any unevenness. A couple of rough coats of orange paint and the memory board was ready to go.

I also gathered some craft supplies to make a little Halloween banner and magnets. The one inch circle magnets came together in just a few steps, painting the wooden discs, adhering a small punched circle of patterned paper and using magnets that came ready to stick-on really helped.

To make the little Halloween banner one inch strips of gingham paper were cut down to 2.75” rectangles with a little flap folded in the back. A careful snip of the scissors made the rectangles into little flags that I stamped with each letter…except the two “L”s in Halloween ended up on the same flag since they were so skinny.

To hang the banner I adhered bakers twine between each flag’s little flap and twisted the twine around two magnets.

Finally I tried not to cry as I gathered favorite Halloween photos from over the years.

The best part of this memory board is that a new little banner for Thanksgiving and some different magnets could turn this into a place to share all the little things we are thankful for this year.

Thanks so much to Jamie, Jodie and Jen for including my project in this year’s Spooktacular. Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!