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Halloween crafts and cards -
with the look of Halloween of yesteryear
 Halloween
is about decorations and costumes with a touch of whimsical
macabre - ghosts, Jack O'Lanterns, witches, devils, and a host of
unearthly terrors! All of these are captured in illustrations
and
clip art from the Victorian period.
These vintage images from Halloween of a century ago are a great start
for Halloween crafts and scrapbooks that reflect the nostalgia we
associate with the holiday.
 Here are several craft projects to
get you started -- fun, easy, and
something to remind you of how satisfying it is to create your own
holiday treasures and gifts!
As always, if you need
anything
for your crafts, Joann.com
 is online with
fast delivery, and only a click
away.
Halloween
Crafts
 | A great Halloween Tree
starts with an ugly, twisted and very dead branch. Then it gets
"potted" in a hand-cast and painted plaster base that will be a family
heirloom - if yours is anything like the Addams family. We throw
in some cute Halloween Pumpkin Lollipop images to start your decorating. |  | Make a Halloween
Witch Ornament that combines the Victorian sensibilities of
vivid imagery and fanciful ornamentation. This simple ornament has a
few "secret" ingredients that will make you a wizard of ornament
crafting. |  | Hang a Halloween
Clown Ornament with all the trimmings of a old-time Halloween
parade. Cute to beat the band, this craft is simple enough for children
and classy enough to hang on your front door. |  | Here's a Halloween
Pumpkin Ornament with a surprise - a black cat popping out of
a Jack o'Lantern. The other surprise is how easy it is to
make. Just four ingredients and you have an instant antique. |
 |
A jaunty Halloween
Chenille Figure makes a great ornament for your Halloween
tree, table decoration, or lapel pin. Choose the black cat or
the Jack O'Lantern, and make them for your friends! |
 |
Our Halloween
Treat Basket is a personal-size, trick-or-treat party
essential. The technique is Victorian paper-weaving with an aged paper
treatment that begins with a single brown paper bag. Fringed
with black crepe paper, this is a design reminiscent of the
1890s. |
 |
This Halloween
Luminary
is incredibly easy to make with a few materials, but the results are
spectacular. Vintage Halloween images by Ellen H. Clapsaddle
flicker and dance with a single votive candle. |
Halloween Cards
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Make your own 3-D
Halloween Card
using a simplified paper tole technique. Paper tole is the art of
constructing three-dimensional pictures by cutting and layering
elements from identical images. Ours uses only two layers, but the
effect is magical. |
 |
Our Halloween
Pop Up Card
is a simple version of the intricate Victorian pop up cards of yore.
Like its Victorian cousins, this card uses cut out "scraps" from
several cards to create a lively 3-D scene of a flying witch heading
for the moon. |
 |
This Padded
Pumpkin Card
mixes paper craft with no-sew fabric quilting, for a soft-to-the-touch
three-dimensional effect. We love how the inside pumpkin
bulges through the cut-out window on the cover. |
Decoding
Victorian Halloween Symbols
Halloween is America's second most popular
holiday, after Christmas, for decorating. On
October 31, houses are festooned with
jack-o'-lanterns and strings of orange
lights, while skeletons, mummies, scarecrows
and vampires cavort among front-yard
tombstones in an attempt to attract, and
scare, wandering trick-or-treaters. Indoors,
candles flicker through spider webs,
illuminating costumed party goers, baskets of
candy and bubbling witch's brew.
These age-old Halloween symbols have deep
roots, coming from pre-historic Celtic Druid
harvest celebrations. It was thought that
the night was the annual occasion when the
boundaries between the living and the dead
dissolved, and costuming as members of the
underworld could protect the living from
danger. Through the centuries, the holiday
evolved through many guises, from the early
Gaelic celebration of Samhain to the medieval
All-hallow-even, the eve of All Hallows' Day
- but it became a true American obsession in
the late 19th century.
The spooky vintage images of Halloween we
have come to expect were first created for
post cards, decorations and books around
1900. Now in the public domain, we've taken
some of the most spectacular antique
illustrations and designed crafts for
decorating and gift-giving. Join us for an
old-fashion Halloween crafting party!
Did you know...
One forgotten slant to Halloween is that
Victorians considered it a romantic holiday,
much like Valentine's Day. Many vintage
images depict magic charms and customs for
determining if your lover is true, or who you
will marry.
In her book, Postmarked
Yesteryear, Pamela E.
Apkarian-Russell describes some of the
fortune-telling customs depicted in period
illustrations: "In Wales, a girl on Halloween
places a knife among the leeks in the garden.
She must do this walking backwards. Her
future husband will come and throw the knife
into the middle of the garden. Hardly
romantic. The girl walking backwards down
the stairs with a mirror and a candle to see
her true love seems a trifle more romantic,
but just as dangerous. Throwing an apple
peel over her shoulder which will land in the
shape of her true love's initial seems a lot
easier and safer." |
Do you have a favorite
Halloween craft? We would enjoy hearing from you with ideas, comments
or questions. Please, contact
us with a note!
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