Altering Halloween

What is it about Halloween that draws me to the craft of altering photos? I guess I just want to dress everyone up! Dress up an Altoids tin! Dress up my ancestors! Dress up my baby-self! Turn my big sister into a witch!

I made these tins last year.

This is the outside of the tins.

This first one is my big sister!

I started with this photo.

That is me looking extra cute, in the middle on the occasion of my First Communion. What better occasion to turn your sister into a witch? My older sister is on the left, and my cousin on the right. You have to sometimes be careful who you turn into a witch. I knew my sister would not mind.

Choosing a photo is fun. I just look for one that will look good in a tall hat! I don't cut up the old pictures. I just make a copy of it on my printer, or print it from a scanned photo. I like to use black and white. The older the photo, the better.

To alter a tin, you have to first rough it up a bit with sand paper. This helps any glue, or paint to adhere. I use white craft glue, and Mod Podge for these projects.

When I start the tins, I first choose and add the outside paper, then the inside paper. For these tins and altered photos I am showing here, I used mostly Graphic 45 paper. I used a variety of embellishments - some from Close To My Heart, some from Tim Holtz. I also had some spiders and bats from the dollar store in my stash. In addition, I use an old tune book, I think originally intended for learning to play the piano. It has some great lyrics and graphics in it. The Halloween song was perfect for this project. Whenever I see an old book like that at a yard sale, I pick it up. It goes into my craft room in a bin marked "Vintage Paper".

The most fun is placing the embellishments on and around the photo. This one is a photo of my sister and me.

Before I began, the photo looked like this. Aw....

This year, I did not use tins, but made my cut out figures and stood them up on decorated boxes, or spools. The first step is to Mod Podge the photo onto some sturdy cardboard, and cut out the person you are planning to alter.

These nice ladies (my great aunts on my mother's side) ...

became these fun girls!

Off to the Halloween party, ladies! Bob for apples!

The wings on these gals are from a dollar store plastic bat. The cardboard slides into

a decorated box. The little pumpkin is from a small floral sprig you can buy at the craft store

The autumn leaves are a scrapbooking embellishment from Close To My Heart. I found some fun Halloween graphics online and printed those off. The orange skirt is from an online source.

Then, I turned to this cute photo of my dad and his siblings. I chose my Aunt Helen, on the left...

And turned her into a cute little trick or treat tyke!

Aw! What a cutie patootie!

One note on this one - I always put a bit of paper on the back, so it is not so ugly if anyone were to glance at it from behind. For this one, I used a page from an old book - a thesaurus. I usually trim the backing so you can't see it, but I thought the words looked kind of cool on this one, so I did not trim it.

This photo shows my twin aunts standing between their visitors.. (Note - the little tyke in the previous photo is the twin center left, some years later.) The sweet gal on the right was one of the visitors, and seemed like she really wanted to go to a Halloween party.

She turned into a Halloween diva, by the time I got done with her!

Use whatever you have. Glitter is always helpful, for the hats and the wings. I give the black paper a very thin coat of Mod Podge and sprinkle glitter on, and let it dry. A spool as a base is nice because you don't have to make a slot to put the stand up deal in. Just slide into the hole in the middle. You can buy these empty spools at the craft store.

If you use a box instead of a spool, you have to make a slot for the cardboard stand up. This was a spice tin. You can see I had to cut the slot, so that the shape will stand up.

I guess I like this work the way I liked paper dolls when I was young. (Ok, like I still like paper dolls). And, having these festive people all around makes Halloween more fun, surrounded by our ancestors and those you love! They are just a little..... altered.

Happy Halloween!