Halloween Day 1 - Candy Corn Tree

Happy beginning of the Halloween season!!!
  (For me anyway.) :)

I'm so excited to be paryting with everyone all week!!  I've got some projects lined up that I am pretty flippin' excited about!!  I say 'excited' alot, don't I?

I love Halloween!!  Without a doubt it's my second favorite holiday of the year!!  Nothing can beat Christmas...sorry....not even Halloween.

It's one of the few memories I have of my early childhood years.  I can remember my dad and my uncle dressing up and scaring the kids as they came up to my aunt and uncles house!  They would hide and jump out with scary masks on and yell!  I remember trick or treating with my cousins.  I just remember how much fun we all had every year!!  Since my childhood wasn't always happiness, stability and roses...when I have a memory of my family all together and happy, yeah, I pretty much cherish them!  So, that's why Halloween has always been a favorite of mine!

So, every year I do decorate for it some.  And I LOVE to hand out candy to the kids!  It's one of the highlights of my year!  I don't dress up, but I've been known to put on a silly headband or witches hat!

All the projects I'm going to show you over the course of the week (Friday to Friday) were made this year!  This first project is one of my favorites!!  And it was pretty much FREE!! :)

It's my Candy Corn Tree!

I am totally in love with this project!!

And it was SO easy and FREE!  Wait!!!  Did mention it was...free?  LOL  I just can't get enough of that word! :)

The sticks are actually the dead stalks from my plethora of lillies in my back yard, spray painted black!

The container is a clean, empty plastic peanut butter jar - which I wrapped in jute and tied with ribbon I already had.

I've been super slightly obsessed with candy corn this year.  Not with eating it!  No, it's been all the super cool candy corn projects I've been seeing in blogland!

I saw earrings made from paint sample cards (of course I don't remember where) and I briefly considered making some...but seeing as how I'm not a jewelry maker, that didn't make sense.  But when I started working on my tree...the lights came on and I knew I could make something similar for my tree!!!!

So, I collected orange, yellow and white paint chip cards (from Lowe's, Home Depot, and Walmart - because I didn't want to seem greedy and get them all from one place...I figured I should space my thieverly out.) ;)  I cut them into thin strips and glued them together in the color order of a candy corn.  When the glue dried, I cut triangles out of the cards.  Then I used my paper edge rounder (from scrapbooking) to round the corners.  You of course could just round the edges with scissors. 

I did age my candy corns.  They seemed too 'happy' all bright and new looking next to my creepy looking 'branches'.  I sanded them a little to knock off some of the shine on the sample cards so the glaze would stick.  Then I just let them dry and hot glued them onto some of the 'limbs'. 

(I may have Modge Podged these somewhere along the way...but it's been almost a week...my memory is THAT short!)

But anyway...like I said...pretty much free!  I'm completely in love with this tree...have I mentioned that?  ;)

Ok, come back tomorrow for Halloween Day 2!!  Saturday's project involves my NEW CRICUT!!!  I can't wait!  (haha...you thought I was going to say I was super excited didn't you!) ;)

UPDATE: Infrarrantly Creative is where I got the idea for the candy corns that I used on my tree!


Until tomorrow...