If you enjoy Halloween crafting, you’re sure to adore this vintage wooden block decoration idea. Get creative and personalize your vintage-inspired wooden block Halloween decor with these directions.
The inspiration for this Halloween craft came from a pin on Pinterest.
Vintage Wooden Block Halloween Decorations
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For This Project, you’ll need:
- Wooden blocks
- Black Acrylic Craft Paint
- Halloween Cardstock
- Tim Holtz Glass Apothecary Vials with Corks
- Tim Holtz Sizzix Halloween Thinlits
- Tim Holtz Distress Ink Bundle
- Scissors, paper cutter, or X-Acto knife, straight edge, and cutting mat
- Mod Podge
- 1-inch flat paintbrush
- Round paintbrush
- 6-inch Mini skeleton
Directions:
Paint The Wood Blocks
These wood blocks came from The Dollar Tree.
Paint one coat of paint over all sides but one. Rest the cube on that side until the paint is dry. It won’t take long. Then, paint the last side.
After the paint has dried, take a piece of brown paper bag and sand the cube, especially where the sides connect. Once you have done this, you can feel that the painted surface is smoother. It also tones down the sharp edges. I know. It doesn’t seem like a paper bag would do much, but it does.
Paint a second coat of paint over the sanded blocks. Then, sand again with the piece of brown paper bag.
Halloween Cardstock for Covering the Vintage Wooden Block
The Parklane Haunted Hollow cardstock pad has a script design on some pages. I chose to use this design for the sides of the blocks. This pad came from Joann Fabrics.
Remember, you will need 6 decorative squares for each cube. Note that you need to cut 2-1/8 inch squares for these blocks. You don’t want to make them 2-1/4 – inches. You’ll have problems with the corners and the black background makes a nice frame. I used a paper cutter, but you can use a straight-edge, cutting mat, X-Acto, or scissors.
Antique the edges of the cardstock. You don’t want to call attention to a bright white edge. I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink stamp pads along all four edges of each square.
Use the same stamp pads to distress the outer edges on the fronts of the squares, too. I only used the two lighter colors in this group.
Apply Mod Podge to the back of the cardstock square. (This cardstock is decorated on both sides.) Center the square cutout on one side of the block. Repeat for each of the six sides
I covered two of these blocks. In my head, there’s a plan to make a coordinating vintage block after this post.
Mini Bottles, Skeleton, and Cheesecloth
Most of the bottles I’ve used are Tim Holtz’s, but the smallest is from Dollar Tree. You might be able to find a variety of mini bottles at Dollar Tree.
It’s easy to cut up a mini skeleton from Dollar Tree to make small bones for adding to the apothecary vials labeled ‘bone dust’ and gluing onto the top of the block for added interest.
While you can use coffee or tea to stain and color cheesecloth, I used Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Spray. Just spray it onto the cheesecloth and, then allow the cheesecloth to dry before gluing it onto the block.
Paint Mini Flowers
There were no black silk flowers at the craft store. Black acrylic craft paint took them from pink to black with some petals showing a little burgundy cast to the petals.
Use a round paintbrush and gently paint the petals. The round tip helps reach down to the petal bottoms.
I left stems on the flowers intended for the glass jar. After painting the smaller rosebuds, I pulled the flower buds from the stem.
Make the single rose petals by removing the sepals from one bud and pulling off the outer silk petal layer. Then, cut petals away from the 3-petal layer.
Make the Skull Rosette
Cut a 12-inch strip of cardstock 3/4 inch wide. Use a scoring board and tool to score every 1/4 inch. Then, fold accordion style. Glue the ends together, flatten the glued piece to create a rosette, and hot glue the center in place. Cutting a small circular piece of cardstock and gluing it over the center will help hold the rosette in place.
Glue a bat cutout onto the rosette. Use the Tim Holtz skull and bones die and cardstock to make the skull and bones. Adhere the skull pieces in place on the front of the rosettes.
For detailed directions for making rosettes, ◄ click here.
Glue the large bottle to the back corner of the block with Tacky Glue. Then glue the dried cheesecloth across the top of the block. Gather the cheesecloth in the center to create a loose bunch in the middle.
Next, glue the smallest bottle, lying on its side, onto the cheesecloth.
Create the Flying Bats
To begin with, you need black bat cutouts. These are made using the Cricut and black double-sided cardstock. I cut two of each bat.
Next, you’ll need a wooden pick, or something similar, to wrap florist wire around to create a support for the bat cutouts. This florist wire is 26 gauge. Since the wire is green, I used a black permanent marker to color it while it was still on the wood pick.
Note that I created a loop on the end of the wire before laying it in the glue on the bat and sandwiching it with an identical bat.
After preparing the bats on the coiled wires, wrap the end of the wire around the stemmed flowers. Cut the length of the wire if necessary. Then, place the flowers in the bottle.
Apply glue to the bottom of the bottle and set it in place on the block.
The graphic for the ‘bone dust’ label and the October 31st label can be downloaded ◄ here from Canva. I printed this on white cardstock using the 8 x 10″ setting instead of the full page. Maybe I should have used an antiqued cardstock instead…🤔
Anyway, after cutting out the October 31st sign, it is glued to black cardstock. Leaving a border around the graphic, cut the black cardstock. This makes it a little sturdier and it can be glued in place on top of the cheesecloth.
Add Finishing Touches to the Halloween Vintage Wooden Block
Lastly, glue the flower petals, mini rosebuds, cork, and bones in place around the jars.
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