Lindsey, from Pillow Thought, isn’t a stranger around here. She has guest posted a few times and we adore her creativity. These creepily cute invitations makes me want to throw a Halloween party, or at least be invited to one this way. 😉 Lindsey, take it away!
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It’s kinda like a “save the date” invitation but a Halloween version.
This is possibly the most EASY & CHEAP invite!
I just cut out the centers of each book the night before and left the rest for the next day.
WHAT YOU NEED:
- Antique Books – Thrift Store -spent $1 each
- Spanish Moss (1 bag) – Dollar Store
- Hemp Yarn – Wal-Mart
- Hot Dog – Grocery Store
- Shell Noodles – Grocery Store
- Hot Glue Gun/ Glue Sticks – Craft Store
- Brown Roll of Paper (1 roll)- Dollar Store in the school section
- x-acto Knife
- Printer to print tags on
- Lighter
- Scissors
You can totally use what you already have at home because the only thing I had to buy were the 3 Antique Books ($3), Brown Roll of Paper to wrap ($1), Spanish Moss ($1)
So, a total of $5 on the coolest invitations I have ever made!
I only made the book invitations for the people who live in town… we have other friends who are coming that are not nearby so I sent out digital invites for the rest. Not paying shipping and handling saved me some mullah.. I just hand delivered them on their steps… no ringing the door, just dropped it off like a little package.
I just printed out all the information I needed and burned the edges to make it look older. I also did this to one of the books that looked newer.
I put the whole hot dogs in the microwave, then cut them afterwards. I think I put them in for around 40 seconds. You just have to watch it as they are cooking because they will start to bust open.
I just kinda cut the fingers approximately the length of mine and I made sure they fit in the holes that I made in the book. I squirted ketchup onto the cut off finger nail bed
and used an extra hot dog tip to smooth it around.
I really liked the way my hot dog looked from the previous night, so you might wanna play around with a package and see how you like the coloring. You can also get a candle flame to it and see if you can get it burned. I tried with lighter but it hardly singed it…
For the nail, I looked around my pantry to see what items I already had that could work and I found these noodles and went from there. I used a knife to cut down on the noodle so it broke where I needed. You might have to cut the inside edge of the noodle too.
(use your sharpest knife)
(I just used a knife to cut the knuckle indentations)
Ok, so this is when I started to whip out the hot glue gun!
I didn’t want to over power the finger so i just got a pinch of the moss and glued some down on the bottom left & right hand side.
I used some hemp string/yarn to tie the knot on the finger..
this is the part where the “don’t forget” comes into play.
I hot glued the back side of the hot dogs down onto the book.
I also put them in the freezer thinking it would dry the ketchup faster. I don’t think it did, but it did make the hot dogs look all weird. Not sure which look I preferred better, but I figured they would be thawed again by the time they were opened.
I sealed all the books up with the hemp string.
Then I wrapped them in the brown paper and repeated the same deal with the string
Voila! You are ready for delivery!!
THINGS I LEARNED:
- Microwave the hot dogs for around 40 seconds. I think it totally changes the “look” the more hot dogs you microwave at once.. so this one might be trial and error.
- I had three different books from DI and one (the blue one) the pages were really old, which I liked.. but it made it a little harder to use the exacto knife on it with out ripping pages. You just have to be more careful on older books.
- By the way, this was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fun to make!
Don’t forget to come say hello to me over at Pillow Thought!!
Thanks, Lindsey! That is so eerie, I wouldn’t be able to resist checking out the party 😉 For another way to add some “eek” to your “chic”, check out how to wrap your mummy!
Alison says
Fund Idea, I’d blah…if I saw a finger though;) I’d love to see the people’s face that opened the invite!! Thanks for the post!!!
Molly/Fleur de Bee says
LOVE IT!! I’m totally laughing!
Stephanie says
I love the old, sort of already creepy feeling of using the vintage books. The musty smell of the old books is an added sensory bonus!
Tina Matteson says
This is adorable! The fingers are so real and scary looking!! hahahaha!
mae says
I just wonder what would the person do with the hot dog part after you gave it to them. I would think it would stink if you left it in the book for very long, and with it being glued in I wouldn’t think it would be easy to dispose of just the hot dog so that you could keep the rest of the invite. I am wondering if a bread stick finger would be better.
Samantha says
haha! This is great! I could totally see myself doing this. Although I agree with Tina that the smell of the hot dog if it was left out too long would probably make me want to consider something else for the finger, but still LOVE the idea so much!