The way the crow flies

This was the month of the X-acto. Not to mention glitter.

For my project, I wanted to create a hanging Halloween goody, and when I saw the crow template in Creating Keepsakes magazine, I was hooked. I went to the web site, downloaded the template and sized it up in Photoshop. Once it was printed out, I cut it out and traced it onto a piece of cardstock and used my X-acto to cut that out. I wasn't too concerned about rough edges because I knew I'd be smoothing them out with my Basic Grey Precision tool kit.


Once I had all three crows, I decided to cover one side with paper. I selected a grid paper for one and a pumpkin pattern paper for the other and used PVA to cover one side of chipboard. I flipped that over onto the backside of the paper and brayered, making sure to get out all the bubbles. I set it aside for a few minutes and then trimmed off the excess. (The final crow would be covered in glitter.)


From here, it was a matter of decorating. I used the American Crafts Thicker shapes to create my frames for my letters. But first I covered them in Doodlebug orange glitter. I started with the sticky side up, added glitter, let that dry. Then I added a coat of Tombo followed by a second coat of glitter. After that was dry, I added my striped pattern paper to the back along with my black glitter letter from American Crafts.


For the middle crow, I created a pinwheel by folding three strips of patterned paper into an accordion fold. Each section was attached using Terrifically Tacky tape while the middle was held together with a nice dollop of PVA. (The pinwheel was placed between two heavy objects so it wouldn't come apart during the drying process. PVA sets up fairly quickly, but I was a bit nervous so I let sit for a good hour or so. If you want to be completely nervous, let it dry over night.) The framed "O" was also attached using PVA. This time I set one of my small candle holders on top. (It's all so scientific around here.) This crow was also covered in Doodlebug black glitter.


I thought I was done but realized that if this guy turned, I'd be in a heap of trouble when it came to the backside, which was just plain chipboard. So I quickly covered everything with black cardstock and used black glitter all along the edges. I highly recommend covering BOTH sides of your hanging project at the same time.

A leaf, crown and some orange bling finished off the process. Everything was attached to a black ribbon. I wound a piece of waxed linen thread through one of the holes in the ribbon and tied it off so I could hang it where I wanted.