Ode to Scary Books & Movies

Cultivate your appetite for old scary movies and books with these awesome burlap halloween ornaments that pay homage to the likes of Vincent Price and Beverly Garland. Each one deserves a spotlight of its own. Let's roll the tape!

Some fake fall bushes had just the right kind of 'flower' that worked with The Forgotten Planet. Remember the glow-in-the-dark stars from the Raven Lantern post? A few found their way onto this ornament as well.

And the washers that held those round wooden balls that I painted for that post found their way into The Robot & The Man ornament.

Strategic placement of the top two buttons echo the eye of our star, Beverly Garland, in Not of This Earth! Yikes!  By the way, I discovered these fabulous movie posters at the blog "Found in Mom's Basement." It's listed as a free art resource for vintage ads on my sidebar. The book jackets are also from there.  

I laughed upon seeing the Invasion of the Saucer-Men poster --it looks like someone else didn't like their brussel sprouts growing up, either!

And of course, I had to make one of the House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price!  After having created all these decorations, I now can't wait to see those kitchy old movies.  


But before we pop that popcorn, let's take a look at how to make burlap movie poster halloween ornaments:

Step one is to print out those great posters onto computer printer fabric with your ink jet printer.

I want my ornaments to do double-duty, so I also found some thanksgiving fabric and I'll be placing images from that on the back side of the ornament. But we'll cover that in a future post...

Cut out the images as well as a slightly larger piece of burlap for each ornament. Layer a piece of low-loft batting under your image to give it some puff. Remember to include a loop of ribbon to hang the ornament. I used just one piece of burlap, put black thread in my needle and green thread in the bobbin. I then arranged the front and back images and sewed them so that the appropriate color of thread finished out each side.

Now comes the fun part. Gather some of your bling so you can gussie these puppies up. The ever-present glue gun makes for quick work.

I couldn't resist adding a little glitter to the mix with Stickles. 

A bit of sparkle to the dress... to the skeleton... to Vince's jacket...

Then, to preserve the ink-jet printed images, seal with matte Mod Podge. I know... it looks scary to cover your image all in white!

But you'll note in just a matter of minutes it starts to dry clear. It will also make the colors in the image more saturated or intense.

An encore curtain call for these beastly burlap beauties.


Q: What's your favorite scary movie?