My sweet friend, Julie Weller, hosted a Sweet and Sinister Swap for us this year and my partner was Michelle Duke, aka The Duchess.

Michelle and I told each other our preferences and then got to work creating Halloween treasures for each other. The swap includes:

• Something Sweet
• Something Sinister
• Something Handmade
• Something Thrifted
• Something Home Decor

With our crazy schedules it was difficult to have time to open our presents, since we wanted to FaceTime each other to see the reaction. I opened up my box yesterday and Michelle opened up her box today!

Eek!  Isn’t this an awesome box?  My prezzies are inside here!

I love how Michelle created a handmade card for me, it’s super spooky with the giant spider on it! Check out my haul!

Here’s the scary loot on my mantel. Michelle decorated a photo frame with a gorgeous feather and vintage flower and a vintage picture inside. She also made me a candle, inside the black apothecary style jar, that smells like licorice. These are my Home Decor goodies.

Oh Mummy!  Next is this frightful mummy on a sarcophagus, decorated with a black rose. This is my Something Thrifted, since she found the box at the second hand store. He’s pretty amazing, with his black mesh and all!

Michelle made me a cute pin with black and cream striped ribbon surrounding a cameo of a skeleton lady. This is my Something Handmade and I can’t wait to wear her!  Behind her is a sweet shabby chic style envelope made from burlap and lace. There’s also an amazing glam skull decoration with fab feathers. She’s wearing some black roses and bling and I think this is my favorite, ever!  (I seriously hope my cats don’t notice this or they will be banned from the house!) Inside the sarcophagus were three skulls and those are hanging out on the mantel as well.

Thank you, Michelle, for all of my gorgeous and fun presents! The cats discovered the spider rings and have been flipping them all over the house and I’m enjoying the candy eyeballs!  I love all of my scary, spooky and beautiful treasures that you made and selected for me!

Now, I get to show you what I made for Michelle!  A while back, Julie and I took a trip to Roger’s Gardens to check out their amazing Halloween shop. They really put a lot of work into creating gorgeous Halloween and Christmas displays and this is one tradition I always look forward to. We love Roger and his garden!  🙂

Anyways, I saw a pumpkin that I loved but didn’t pick it up that day so I made one myself a bit later, using a Papier Mâché pumpkin, painted with acrylic paint mixed with plaster, embellished with black rhinestones. I added the plaster to give it a textured, matte look.

Michelle said she loved Sugar Skulls, so I made her a Dia de los Muertos skull with hand drawn details, Swarovski Crystals, and a marabou feather and crystal tiara. Isn’t it SCARY?

Next, I made her a wall hanging featuring a vintage little girl in a glittered witches hat decorated with Swarovski Crystals. The wall hanging has a vintage flower topped with a cameo.

For the Something Thrifted I got lucky and scored this gorgeous candle stick. I came across a tutorial online about how to decorate tissue paper and attach it to the candle with a heat gun. But, like everything else, I have to complicate things so I created a design in Photoshop, ran tissue paper through my printer and then attached that to the candle. The candle smells good so that’s the Something Sweet!

I’m so glad we finally opened up our gifts, I’ve been dying to find out what Michelle thought and I couldn’t wait to see what Michelle made me. FaceTime is one of the greatest inventions of all time!

And, I have to give a big THANK YOU to my friend, Pam Munns, for letting me use her incredible art studio to photograph my swap items in. We have such similar tastes in vintage finds that visiting her art studio left me giddy like a kid in a candy store! She has gorgeous vignettes of her vintage and antique finds artfully arranged around her studio and i just wanted to spend days looking through everything.

Thanks for stopping by!

xo,

Christine Barker

{PS} Don’t miss my FREE Halloween Printable: You’ve Been Boo’d!

The full set of printables plus instructions can be found here!

Would you like some more Halloween Crafting Inspiration?  Don’t Miss:

• My FREE Printable, You’ve Been Boo’d, to spread some Halloween spirit around your neighborhood.
• There’s also the Something Wicked This Way Comes Blog Hop with lots of fun ideas on crafts to make for Halloween.
• I also have a FREE Bewitching Hat Tutorial with easy to follow instructions and a free pattern.
• And if you need some petite Vintage Halloween Images to decorate with, I’ve got a cute Vintage Halloween Collage Sheet in the Scarlet Calliope Etsy Shop.