Happy Halloween! Last Minute DIY Costume Ideas.

♥ Happy Halloween ♥

It's that time of year where all things spooky come out at night!
We love Halloween, or any excuse to dress up, but organising a costume can be hard work.
We have put together four easy to do costumes / facepaint ideas for any last minute costumers.

My favourite costume is the Nutcracker, that's what I'll be dressing up as. I'll add some photos of the finished outfit!

Creeepy!

♥ Start by painting your face white with the facepaint and line your eyes with the white eyeliner.
♥ Stick some eyelashes on your top and bottom  lashes.
♥Colour your top lip with red lipstick
♥ Draw some teeth on your bottom lip.
♥ Colour your chin in black. Leaving space at the bottom of your chin to draw another set of teeth and a bottom lip, to give the illusion of a Nutcracker's chops.

Your outfit doesn't need to be fancy. Try stick to blue and red. A red top and blue pants or skirt, stick some gold tassels on if you can find some. Pop a bow tie on too.

Meooow!

♥ Colour your eyelids in with the grey eyeshadow, line them with the black eyeliner. Optionally pop some false lashes on your top eyelid.
♥ Draw a little heart shape on the tip of your nose and some whiskers on your cheeks.
♥ Pop on some spooky black lipstick.
♥ Colour your nails in with the black nail varnish.

For the outfit, you could make a set of ears out of fake fur or felt, and stick them to a headband. Uses left over material to make a tail and stick it to your pants. Wear black leggings and a black top to finish your Kitty outfit.

Brainsssss!

♥ Colour your entire face with green facepaint (and your limbs if you're daring enough)
♥ Use the red lip liner to draw some veins on.
♥ Use the red lipstick to colour some 'blood' around your chops, to make it look like you've been munching on the living.

Since zombies are just people that have magically come back from the dead, you can wear anything.
Super handy for a last minute costume.

Bones, Bones, Bones.

♥ Colour your face in with white facepaint. (Including your lips.)
♥ Colour your eye sockets in with black facepaint, and draw an upside down heart for your nose socket.
♥ Draw on some teeth on your lips that extend across your cheeks.
♥ If you're a clumsy clops, draw a few cracks on your forehead.

You could go all out and buy a long black t-shirt and black leggings and draw some bones on them. Or wear regular clothes and draw some bones on your hands.

Voilà!
Hope these are helpful. What are you upto this Halloween?

If you're staying in this Halloween, we recommend watching Braindead, Toxic Avenger or Night of the Living Dead, they will sure give you plenty of scares!
♥

The Big Knit

We almost missed out on this years Big Knit! We have spent the last few days whipping up some little hats, Cosmos and Crayons style of course!

We made a Ginge, a Sloth, some kitties and some Pugs.

Every year the lovely people at Innocent  (I call them the smoothie people) raise money to help oldies keep warm during the winter Months. For Each smoothie topped with a hat they sell during November, they donate 25p to Age Concern.

How can you get involved? By knitting / crocheting up some lovely hats and sending them to Innocent's headquarters. Not only does this help raise money, but brings people together from all ages to help a good cause.

The deadline to submit your hats is the 31st October, so we apologise for doing this post a little late.

For more information on The Big Knit you can check out the website:

 The Big Knit

Keep your eyes peeled in November for our little hats! 

♥

Cut Out and Keep: Icosahedron Sun, Earth and Moon Mobile

It's the first Cut Out and Keep project! How cute is this Icosahedron Earth, Sun and Moon mobile! We love making stuff in the lab, so our new regular post 'Cut Out and Keep' will be different projects for you to print out and create.
An Icosahedron is a 20 sided 3 dimensional shape. Wowza.  

Instructions:
Including printing, allow yourself an hour for this project. I rate this as 3.5 tricky sticky sausages out of 5. Anyone can make it, but some of the gluing is abit tricky, so you will need a little patience.

You will need the following images. These files are saved as PNG files, alternatively comment with your email address and I can send you a PDF containing the files :)

Click the image, then right click and save
to your desktop for printing...

... and again...

... and one more time.

You will need

♥ Three sheets of A4 paper/ card ( To print out the Icosahedrons)

♥ Scissors

♥ Glue

♥ Ruler

♥ A piece of string/ wool. A length of 20"/ 50cm will be plenty.

Not got a printer? Email me at chopstitchcrafts@gmail.com with a postal address and I will send you out the images and a piece of string.

I use this handy dinosaur book as a cutting/gluing matt :)

First you want to print out all three Icosahedrons, full size A4 landscape, then chop them out with the scissors.

You only want to score/bend tab number 11 on all three Icosahedrons.

The tabs are numbered in order of gluing (Number are not shown on the images as I added these later)

 Start by adding a generous amount of glue to tab number one. Stick this tab to the tabless side across from tab number one. The image above shows how to do this. Continue gluing along until tab number 5.

 Your Sun should look like the first image. get your piece of string, leave enough length for hanging, then add a knot, slip this knot under the center of the Icosahedron, leaving it trailing underneath then glue tab 5 to the tabless side across, this last tab will pull the icosahedron into shape (as shown in the middle image). Turn the shape onto its side and glue tab 6 to the tabless side across.

 Turn the sun upside down, and continue gluing tabs, in numerical order from 7-10.

You will have tab number 11 remaining. pull the string up through the center, then glue tab 11 in place. This tab is quite tricky, this is why scoring this tab earlier came in hand, if its too tricky to glue, tuck it in so no one can see it. 

 Now start gluing the tabs on Earth until you get to number 5. Pop a Knot in the string as far down as you want the Earth to hang from the sun. then glue tab 5.

 Continue doing the same as you did for the sun, making sure you pull the string through the bottom center.
Follow the above instructions again for adding the Moon.

Only this time, when you get to gluing tab number 11, trim and took the remaining string inside the Moon.
Then pat yourself on the back for all your hard work.

Hope you enjoyed this Cut Out and Keep Project.

Send me a photo of your mobile to chopstitchcrafts@gmail.com, and I'll pop it on the blog :)

♥

Science Facts Thursday: Lead

We had a busy week last week, so unfortunately didn't get chance to update you on some Science facts.

This week we have lots of fun updates! What do you think of the spooky new theme?

We also bring you some science facts on Lead!

The scientific term for a metal that is stretchy is 'malleable' . It's not as stretchy as a Stretch Armstrong, but has a slight flex that can be a handy property for some uses.

Lead is poisonous! It damages the nervous system and can effect the brain.

Lead was once used in paints, pipping and petrol too. In paints it can increase drying time, durability and resist moisture. Quite handy, but due to the effects it can have on your health it is no longer used in most things.

In Alchemy planets are paired up with metals. Lead and Saturn are best buds.

In Greek mythology, Midas was a magical King that could turn anything to gold.  Sounds fun, but have you seen the skittles advert with the chap that turns anything into skittles just by touching it? At least you can eat skittles. There is a level on Tomb Raider, Palace Midas, where you collect 3 lead bars and turn them into gold on Midas's hands. If you have never played it, go get yourself a copy.
Here is what happens when Lara stands on Midas's hands.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks science facts!

Join us later this week where we have a  new regular post to announce!

♥