Ghost Feet

In hopes of not just letting Pinterest be my addiction , I committed to making some of things on my Halloween board before the end of the month.  Yesterday the boys helped me make ghost feet.  This being Thing 2's first Halloween it seemed only fitting to make a memory. 

Equipment:
8" x 10" canvas
Black acrylic paint
White acrylic paint
2 paint brushes
Black & white ribbon
Mod Podge (I used the matte finish)
Black permanent marker
Ruler
Staple gun or flat topped thumb tacks and a hammer

Optional:
White Paint Pen

This project is easy to do and turns out really cute. 

The PIN comes from Miner's Moments.

I lucked out and got a pack of two 8" x 10" canvases for $3.99 at Hobby Lobby.

First thing you want to do is paint your canvas black.



Make sure you paint the edges too.  You'll be putting ribbon over the edges, but  you don't want to take the chance that any white is going to peek out from behind the ribbon.



  

Next, grab your Mod Podge and a paint brush.

I bought my first bottle of Mod Podge, after my homemade batch didn't go so well.

Wrap your ribbon around the edge of your canvas and cut when you're gone all the way around.  You want there to be one piece of ribbon.

Paint the Mod Podge along one edge of the canvas.  I put on a good coat because the ribbon will soak up a little of the glue.  Lay the ribbon over the edge of the canvas and just your finger to smooth the ribbon down along the edge.  Lean the canvas, ribbon edge up, against something.  Let the glue dry before moving onto the next side.

Wash your Mod Podge paintbrush between gluing each side.  You don't want the glue to dry on the brush.  The night before I made these, I googled a tutorial on Mod Podge.  The lady doing the demo said if she could tell you anything one thing to know when using Mod Podge, it is to wash your brush out before the glue dries.



Once the glue has dried, you are ready to move on to the next edge.  You'll want to hold the ribbon on the corner the ribbon is coming around to make sure the it doesn't peel off while you apply the glue to the next edge.  Once the glue is applied, lay your ribbon across the length of the edge and use your finger to smooth the ribbon out.  Set the canvas up for the glue to try and rinse out your brush.  Repeat for the next two sides.

When you get to the last corner where the edges meet, you can put some extra Mod Podge over the edges of the ribbon to help seal them onto the canvas.

When all the glue is dry you will have a really nice border for your project.  If any glue strays or some paper gets stuck to your canvas (it happened to me), don't worry.  You can grab the black paint and go over it.

I liked the idea of using the same foot for my boys and the ghosts matched.

Paint your little one's foot with white paint.  line the canvas up where you want it and press their foot onto the canvas.

You can see below I had one good set of ghosts and one that really didn't come out very well.  No biggie.  I painted over the bottom pair with black paint and when the black paint dried I tried again.  I found you will get better results if you place your hand behind the canvas where your child's foot will go.  This helps to make sure you get good contact between the foot and the canvas.

That's the difference between the top and bottom ghosts.

When the white paint is try, grab your permanent marker and color two black circles on the "head" of each ghost for eyes.  You can add "Happy Halloween", your child's name or even "The ghost(s) of ________".

I had bought a white paint pen for another project so I used it to write on the canvas.  You can also use a fine tipped paint brush and the white acrylic paint if you don't want to spend the money on the paint pen.

I had cut about a 6" piece of ribbon for each canvas.  I used a ruler to make sure I stapled the ribbon to the back evenly.  I stapled the ribbon 2" in from each edge.

If you don't have a staple gun, you can secure the ribbon using flat head thumb tacks (like the gold ones they sell practically anywhere you find office supplies) and hammering the tacks into the wood.

There's my little ghost's feet.  I can't wait to hang these guys up for Halloween.

Thing 1 keeps pointing to the picture saying Footprint!

And since it's almost sweater and scarf weather here, I'm passing along a post TidyMom shared earlier this week.  25 Ways to Wear a Scarf in 4.5 Minutes.  I never knew there were so many options.  Looks like I need to go buy a few more scarfs!