Going Bat Stick Crazy Around Here

And now for the excuses…..

I have not died.

Or driven off the face of the earth.

(Yes, it looks like we might drive off the face of the earth on this road up to Pike’s Peak… oy)

I have just been living a very crazy life here in beautiful Colorado.

To catch you up on everything would make for a thick novel so instead I will sum it up.

1) Had a GREAT My Creative Escape retreat here in CO in April.

2) I’ve been working as a Professional Organizer for Peace Together Spaces and loving it!

3) Spent the end of May and most of June traveling around the country (destination east coast) with my Mom.  Visited Niagara Falls and some LDS Church history sites along the way, ultimately landing at my grandparent’s home in Massachusetts for a few weeks.

4) Had 25 extra bodies (visitors) in my home from the last weekend of June – July:  family, friends, and family and more friends!

5) Had a minor car accident Aug 1.  I have 3 vertabrae pressing into my spinal cord and numbness and tingling in my left arm and hand.  After multiple dr and chiro visits I have ended up with a spine specialist and am now working on getting better with physical therapy and good drugs.  (It hurts to sit at the computer for very long, or really anywhere I have to sit still for very long.)  Trying to avoid surgery.

6) Well… life is just life… and I am going bat “stick” crazy around here… and crafting when I feel well enough…  This past week was a “good week”.

So Anyway…

I am normally not a “Halloween” person.  I don’t do “ghoulish stuff”, “guts”, “scary”, or “creepy” for Halloween, but I DO enjoy silly, cute, fun stuff… and this year I am actually excited to decorate for fall and Halloween. YAY!

When I was in Utah at the end of August for my friend, Tahne’s, birthday  and B’s work, and a concert (F.U.N.) I stopped in one of Utah’s plethora of crafty shops… I can’t remember which one it was, but I picked up a fun witch’s boot to decorate and saw the most adorable bats… but I didn’t purchase them… I figured I could make them myself with scraps from B’s woodshop. (Leftover bits of InkStaks and RibbonStaks).  So I drew up some bats in Photoshop and printed out the pattern, traced them onto some scraps of pine and zipped them on out our band saw.

and dry fitted them with some fun patterned and textured papers…

 

Then I painted up the edges with this fabulous home made glitter paint…

 

To make the paint, mix:

Any color acrylic crafty paint
Small amount of Valspar Paint Crystals (GLITTER) for paint (Lowes)

**A little glitter goes a LONG way… and it will add texture to your paint, esp if you accidentally dump the bag over your paint… :)

** Use a popsicle stick to stir the paint and glitter, not your paint brush.

 

After the paint dried sufficiently enough that I could handle the bats (not a patient crafter here) I wandered out to the wood shop and measured out some dowels sticks… "(bat stick, hahaha.. get it? ok.. well.. )

 
While they finished drying (I also mod podged on the papers), I whipped up some custom dyed ribbons to finish up the bats and another fun Halloween decor project.

Here is my finished Bat Trio.  I think they turned out whimsical and fun. Now to decide where to display them in the house!

 

 

Happy flying, little bats!

I’m sorry I’ve been away so long.. leave me a note and let me know if you’re still out there in blog land!

 
Inky Smiles!