Craftster member kirastorm has a miniature Christmas tree that she plans to decorate with a different theme every year. Her inaugural theme was The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I think it turned out splendidly.

The ornaments are simply plain balls that she painted: Black, white with black spirals, and Jack’s face. The rest of the tree is filled in with black-and-white garland and white stars. As simple as the ornaments are, they’re really very striking.

This would be a great decoration for a small space, for Halloween or the various winter holidays.* If you wanted to get fancy, you could also decorate blown eggs with the same designs. You could also swap out the tree for something a little less overtly seasonal like a bare branch or standing metal hanger and use it to display the ornaments (or eggs) year-round.

*I realize it’s only July, but think of this as getting a head-start on seasonal crafts.

Molly of The Purl Bee made this cute “aquarium” bulletin board, which would be great for a child’s room.*

Something a bit darker would also be a great gift for an older child or adult. Instead of starfish and seaweed, you could populate your “aquarium” with sharks, piranha, and electric eels. Or, instead of an aquarium, choose a darker-colored board and make a graveyard with little felt tombstones, skulls, and fluttering bats. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, a set of magnets that can be arranged into a skeleton (skull, ribcage, pelvis, armbones, etc.) would be a great project.

Felt is fairly easy to work with because the edges don’t ravel. You can cut small, intricate shapes without having to worry about finishing raw edges or turning tight corners. Keep an eye for a theme that appeals to you, then search for patterns (or even clip art) that you can print and use as a cutting guide. Add a bit of simple embroidery (Molly’s tutorial is a great guide to embellishing the shapes) and you can turn out nice-looking felt objects without too much effort.

You can also decorate the magnetic board itself using paint or thin contact paper cut into various shapes. A flock of magnetic bats flitting out of a gothic-looking window would be much more fun to hang dental appointments and reminders to call the plumber than a boring old corkboard.

*With the important caveat that the child is old enough to know not to swallow magnets. Strong magnets can cause internal injury if swallowed.

Here’s an adorable mixed-media scarf by Cut Out and Keep member stitch.tac.sew. The scarf is hand-knit, but the skull appliques would be a great way to personalize a purchased scarf or other item.

I like the off-kilter look of these skulls, and the colors are lovely together. Felt is a wonderful material to applique with, since you don’t have to worry about raw edges unraveling. These appear to be attached with a blanket stitch, which is super easy to do.

The shapes are all very simple, so you could do this kind of applique in just an hour or two. It’s a great last-minute way to customize an accessory.

Here’s a fun upcycling idea: Naughty Secretary Club has several easy suggestions for embellishing a plain pair of gloves.

You can often find pretty lace gloves at secondhand stores, but they’re frequently stained or otherwise less than pristine. Using fabric paint, dye, or ribbon, you can make them like new and customize them to your heart’s content.

I like her idea of dying pairs of gloves to match a jacket, and there are all sorts of things you can do with a little fabric paint and a stencil. You can make matching pairs for you and a friend, or do “opposites” gloves with opposing colors or images on the hands.

This is a super-simple project with a great payoff.

Here’s a neat display idea: A bit of the outdoors under glass. These are sometimes sold pre-made as “beach boxes,” containing beach sand, shells, bits of driftwood, and other small natural objects (the pictured example is a “Great Lakes prism” by The Wild Unknown). I really like the Zen-like arrangement of the items.

Obviously, making your own box from articles you’ve collected would be more meaningful, and it certainly doesn’t have to be beach-themed. Beveled-glass pyramid boxes are available in some craft stores (although, weirdly, I couldn’t locate an inexpensive source online), but you can also choose any other small glass display that suits you.

For contents, you can collect small items from a favorite vacation spot* or–my favorite–visit an old cemetery and look for interesting objects. A bit of graveyard dirt (dry it in the oven if you’re going to put it in a sealed container, lest residual moisture fog up the glass), a crow’s feather, and other doom-laden detritus would make a gloomily lovely display.

One of my prized possessions is an antique key that I found in an old graveyard in England. I usually wear it on a necklace, but I’m thinking about making it the centerpiece of a desktop display like this one.

*Please make sure that there are no restrictions on collecting before you take anything. Many national parks and similar sites have strict regulations about that sort of thing to protect fragile ecosystems.

Dave Lowe recently did a series of “Sinister Saint” cartoons on Para Abnormal, highlighting saints who are the patrons of things like gravediggers and swordsmiths. He decided to turn a couple of them into novena candles for Halloween props, and posted a how-to on his blog.

He’s got the “candle-ready” images he used available for download, but the same method could be used for the image of your choice. Adding stained-glass effects to a picture is fairly easy in Photoshop (this is one method, but there are lots of other tutorials available for the googling), and if you have access to a color printer it’d be easy to turn out lots of these pretty quickly.

These might make interesting favors for parties or weddings: Browse through the Big List o’Saints* to find appropriate patrons,*** fancy up their icons in Photoshop (bonus: Old-time saints tended to get sainted by dint of being gruesomely martyred, so the artwork depicting them frequently looks like something Clive Barker dreamed up), print, glue, and done!

I’m a big fan of projects that look like they took much more time and skill than they actually did, and this is something that even the most thumb-fingered amongst us should be able to accomplish pretty easily.

*Not its real title.**

**Although, frankly, given that there’s patron saint of knife-grinders and a saint you’re supposed to pray to for in-law problems, it’s hard to think of it by anything grander.

***Incidentally, the patron saint of the Internet is St. Isidore. Despite having lived around 600 AD, when broadband really wasn’t widely available, he was nominated as the patron of computers, computer techs, and the Internet in 1999.

Here’s a box that will make a statement, no matter what gift is inside. Noah Fentz made this for a haunter’s group gift exchange. It’s papier mache and paint with a faux barbed-wire “ribbon,” and makes a nice companion to the gift box he did the previous year which appeared to be sewn from Santa’s skin. You can see photos of both here.

He doesn’t provide details on what the faces are made from, but I’m assuming they’re lightweight plastic or carved styrofoam (they might be wig heads similar to the ones he used on his pillars of lost souls). He mentioned that his papier mache technique was inspired by Pumpkinrot and Spooky Blue, but Stolloween is also a wonderful resource site.

This is a relatively simple but undeniably effective idea, and ripe for all kinds of customization. You could cover a box with pretty much any lightweight object that would hold up to hot glue and papier mache: Spiders, skulls, cryptic runes, writhing tentacles; anything you can purchase, carve from styrofoam, or model in clay. Glue to a sturdy box (one with a separate lid is probably best), cover with papier mache, and paint as desired. With a box this cool, the gift is probably optional.

I’ve mentioned cemetery-themed terraria on the site previously, but I love this extra-miniature example by Etsy seller LBrandt. It uses moss for the greenery and is housed in a hanging glass drop. The shop also sells miniature headstones and even a teeny little grim reaper for your terrarium-decorating pleasure.

I’m not sure how much the seller charges (the shop is temporarily closed), but it would be reasonably easy to do a DIY version inexpensively.

Moss is easy to maintain (there are instructions for creating a moss terrarium here, here, and about a zillion other places on the Web), and it’s great for very small containers. You could also try air plants (like those used in this terrarium-in-a-light-bulb tutorial) or miniature ferns.

In addition to the glass drop used here, you could also try laboratory flasks, canning jars, or even the big glass “decorate it yourself” ornaments sold at craft stores. If you want a slightly larger container, brandy snifters, goldfish bowls, and lidded glass kitchen canisters are all possibilities.

Miniature headstones are available from some dollhouse suppliers, although if you’re doing a particular teeny design it might be easier to make them yourself out of Sculpy or polymer clay. Add a few rocks (dabbing them with diluted yogurt will encourage the moss to grow all over them) or other appropriately somber-looking decorations, and you’ve got a little pocket of gloom perfect for your desk or windowsill.

I think a little twisty-looking bonsai tree on mossy ground would look especially nice surrounded by tombstones.

(via Haute Macabre)

I ran across this cute tutorial over at Naughty Secretary Club and was inspired to try something similar. I made a few changes and had some additional comments, so I figured it was worth posting a modified how-to of my own.

Painted tights are quite fashionable right now, but can be outrageously expensive. Jennifer’s great DIY take on them is cheap, easy, and infinitely customizable. I tried a fairly simple calavera for my first attempt, but it’d also be fun to do trailing thorns or dripping blood down the whole leg. If you’re really feeling ambitious, you could paint the outlines of leg bones for an X-ray look.

Cheeky Magpie has posted a free pattern for these completely awesome anatomically accurate heart cards, along with some decorating suggestions. I especially like the “key to my heart” idea.

There’s plenty of time before Valentine’s Day to whip up a few and spread the love.

(via Haute Macabre)