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

	Our creepy Headless Photo Card has the look of an antique cabinet card photograph -- minus a head or two. To mimic an antique leatherette frame, we show you how to get the look with cardboard, wax paper, ink and your iron. You get TWO vintage photos and Halloween messages to choose from.
	Meow!! The Black Cat Figure arches his back by the light of the full Halloween moon in this magical stand-up scene. You can assemble it in a twinkling with foamcore board and these enchanting vintage images.
	This colorful Halloween Candy Bowl answers the question: What can I make out of an old fish bowl, now that Gerty the Goldfish has gone to her maker? Crepe paper decoupage on the inside is the secret behind the shimmery autumn colors.
	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.
	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

	"Ten Vintage Halloween Greetings to Make" is a 34-page e-book with ready-to-print vintage images, complete instructions and card-making tips! This is a must-have handbook for handmade Halloween cards that deliver a vintage punch. Pop ups, window cards, shakers, paper tole, vellum overlays and many more techniques!
	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!