DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Halloween Decor | Madame Leota Candle

As I have mentioned many a time, we like to use the Haunted Mansion as our inspiration for Halloween decor. And since we leave for Disney in just a couple weeks (yes, again!), it certainly puts us in the mood! I created a candle for my favorite spider candle holder (which it appears, PartyLite no longer makes.) This candle has Madame Leota's incantation printed on it. For those of you who may not be as steeped in Disney tradition as we are in the cottage, Madame Leota is the talking head in the crystal ball in the seance room of the Haunted Mansion, just before the ballroom in the attraction. What you may not also realize, is that Madame Leota was modeled after a long-time Disney Imagineer, Leota Toombs Thomas. You can read a little more about her over at Magical School House, in a wonderful interview with her sister-in-law.

Making this candle was easier that I expected. In fact, this decorative candle tutorial from Heidi Swapp was incredibly easy to follow! I love the endless possibilities it offers! So first, here's the tutorial:



Secondly, here's the print for my candle. You can download my Madame Leota's Candle jpg for free if you'd like to use it. It's made for a 4.5" tall candle with a 9" diameter. This is what it looks like flat:


I could go a little crazy with this! So many great things could be done. I love the idea of three different sized candles, each with a hitchhiking ghost! I'll let you know if I try any more. And please let us know if you try this too! We'd love to see what you come up with. Remember to tag us on Instagram, or leave us a comment below. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Hitchhiking Ghosts Products on Redbubble

 Since we just revisited these lovable ghosts on the DIY side of things, I thought it would be a good time to remind you that if you are overwhelmed with life right now (back to school is STILL a factor here in the cottage!), you can still get really cute T-shirts, dresses, leggings and bags over on my Rebubble site!

There are so many styles to choose from there. And you can see all my other designs there too! If you're headed to Walt Disney World this fall, or attending one of the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Parties, this could be exactly what you need to declare your love of all things Haunted Mansion!

Be sure to leave some love if you check out this design. Until next time, may all your days be filled wit fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Halloween Decor | Hitchhiking Ghost Windows

It's officially time to start thinking about Halloween Decor! I am running one of my favorite Halloween posts today! Enjoy!

 When it comes to Halloween, I like the tamer side of things. I think that's why I gravitate to Disney's Haunted Mansion. It's spooky and fun without traveling into horror in any way. That's my idea of Halloween. And so we tend to be the Haunted Mansion house in our neighborhood, in that we play a CD of the area music, have a fog machine, carve our pumpkins to resemble the hitchhiking ghosts, and now, we will have the same hitchhikers in our windows!

I created these Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts PNG files using photoshop. If you would like to purchase them for your own uses (scrapbooking or otherwise) you can find them in my Etsy shop. For this project, I simply imported the shapes to my Silhouette Studio software. I traced them using the trace tool and cut them out of adhesive vinyl. Remember when you are cutting out anything with words, think about reversing the image before you cut it. It depends on whether you want them to be legible to those in the house, or those on the street.

Once they are cut use the transfer paper to adhere them to the windows. I did not and wound up tearing off the middle hitchhiker's arm at the elbow. I just pieced it together again, but it was disconcerting! Now you're done! You have recreated the ghosts in the graveyard scene from the Haunted Mansion attraction! For a sharp silhouette, pull the blinds or the sheer curtains and turn on all the lights in the room so the light shines through, but the rest of the room is obscured from view. I can't wait to see how many trick-or-treaters (or their parents) recognize our grim grinning ghosts!

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Disney's Haunted Mansion DIY T-shirts

This post originally ran in 2013. I love these t-shirts and wanted to remind you (and me!) about them! Enjoy!
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Last year, most of our kids were old enough to know that Tinkerbell is really me, so to speak. So instead of doing a daily gift, I made a sort of Disney care package. Something to get the vacation off to a magical start. And nothing is better than a one-of-a-kind Disney souvenier to pump the excitement level up another notch.

We usually travel in the fall, with a crew of boys and girls; the bigs are between the ages of 12 and 9 and the littles are still toddlers. It can be tricky to make something that appeals to all ages and both genders, but with a little tweaking, it can be done.

T-shirts are the great equalizer. All kids need shirts and most of ours are trashed by the end of our vacation (Mickey ice cream bars, those sharpies in Epcot, turkey legs, and ketchup do a number on our kids' clothes). An additional T is always welcome. 

I like to reference Disney without using the licensed images when I can. It fosters creativity and is almost always cheaper. Here, I used my Silhouette SD, design id #12940 (bat flourish) to reference the Haunted Mansion. I then added my own monogram using Ravenscroft font. You can certainly find commercial iron-ons and patches, but I like to make our Ts something that no one else in the parks will have. It's especially satisfying when a complete stranger asks where they can get one of those Ts! For these, I used Silhouette Printable Heat Transfer Paper for the T-shirt on the left, and inkjet transfer/iron-on paper (which can be found at any office supply or craft store) for the T-shirt on the right. 

The trick is remembering to reverse the image before printing or you will get a mirror image of the original design. As you can see, I forgot to do that for the T-shirt on the right! Fortunately, the image was fine both ways.

One criticism I have of the Silhouette heat transfer paper is that it only lasts about 4 washes before the image starts to peel right off. It helps to wash the shirts inside out. Otherwise, these were perfect for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. And If you've never been to this special ticketed event, our family highly recommends it. The lines are super short, the parade and fireworks are more magical than ever, and they are giving away candy all over the park. We've attended the Party two different years, and we've been delighted both times.

You can expect to see lots of custom T-shirts featured here in Merryweather's Cottage; as I said, we can never have too many! Stay tuned for more great designs, and until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Liberty Square Inspired Knit Shawl

This was a stash busting project if ever there was one. I mean, those of us who knit, hoard yarn. It's almost a foregone conclusion: you knit, most likely we will find skeins of yarn stored in all manner of hiding places. Like the sleeves of your old winter coat. And the back of the china closet. You know who you are. Every now and again, we knitters need to unload a bit of that stash and the best way to do it is to be stuck on an airplane (at least I think so). So on my recent travels to Puerto Rico, I managed to knit this lovely cotton shawl that reminded me ever so slightly of Liberty Square and the costumes one finds there.

Now, I happened to have the beautiful blue yarn already in my coat sleeves, er, stash. But if I were going to buy yarn for this project, I might just have to choose a Haunted Mansion color like purple or dark green or black to wear with my hitchhiking ghosts t-shirt. (yes, shameless self promotion here.) The beauty of this pattern is that it was easily memorized and fairly simple. It was the perfect sort of mindless knitting one needs for a day of endless meetings, jury duty, or church. I was a little surprised at how heavy it became, but it's the perfect weight for taking the edge off the chill. And I'm down several skeins in the stash department too! Bonus! If you want all the knitty details, you can check out my Ravelry page.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Halloween Decor | Madame Leota Candle (repeat post)

As I mentioned before, we like to use the Haunted Mansion as our inspiration for Halloween decor. And since we leave for Disney in just a couple weeks, it certainly puts us in the mood! I created a candle for my favorite spider candle holder (which it appears, PartyLite no longer makes.) This candle has Madame Leota's incantation printed on it. For those of you who may not be as steeped in Disney tradition as we are in the cottage, Madame Leota is the talking head in the crystal ball in the seance room of the Haunted Mansion, just before the ballroom in the attraction. What you may not also realize, is that Madame Leota was modeled after a long-time Disney Imagineer, Leota Toombs Thomas. You can read a little more about her over at Magical School House, in a wonderful interview with her sister-in-law.

Making this candle was easier that I expected. In fact, this decorative candle tutorial from Heidi Swapp was incredibly easy to follow! I love the endless possibilities it offers! So first, here's the tutorial:



Secondly, here's the print for my candle. You can download my Madame Leota's Candle jpg for free if you'd like to use it. It's made for a 4.5" tall candle with a 9" diameter. This is what it looks like flat:


I could go a little crazy with this! So many great things could be done. I love the idea of three different sized candles, each with a hitchhiking ghost! I'll let you know if I try any more. And please let us know if you try this too! We'd love to see what you come up with. Remember to tag us on Instagram, or leave us a comment below. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Halloween Decor | Hitchhiking Ghosts Window Decals

Today I am re-running my favorite Halloween decor idea for you! Enjoy!

When it comes to Halloween, I like the tamer side of things. I think that's why I gravitate to Disney's Haunted Mansion. It's spooky and fun without traveling into horror in any way. That's my idea of Halloween. And so we tend to be the Haunted Mansion house in our neighborhood, in that we play a CD of the area music, have a fog machine, carve our pumpkins to resemble the hitchhiking ghosts, and now, we will have the same hitchhikers in our windows!

I created these Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts PNG files using photoshop. If you would like to purchase them for your own uses (scrapbooking or otherwise) you can find them in my Etsy shop. For this project, I simply imported the shapes to my Silhouette Studio software. I traced them using the trace tool and cut them out of adhesive vinyl. Remember when you are cutting out anything with words, think about reversing the image before you cut it. It depends on whether you want them to be legible to those in the house, or those on the street.

Once they are cut use the transfer paper to adhere them to the windows. I did not and wound up tearing off the middle hitchhiker's arm at the elbow. I just pieced it together again, but it was disconcerting! Now you're done! You have recreated the ghosts in the graveyard scene from the Haunted Mansion attraction! For a sharp silhouette, pull the blinds or the sheer curtains and turn on all the lights in the room so the light shines through, but the rest of the room is obscured from view. I can't wait to see how many trick-or-treaters (or their parents) recognize our grim grinning ghosts!

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney Haunted Mansion and Pirate Candles | Halloween Decor

Today we have another take on some Disney halloween candles. This time, I chose to work with flameless candles. They are a lot safe for the littles and they accept the adhesive vinyl! True confessions: I tried the adhesive vinyl on the real wax candles; it doesn't stick. Big surprise, I know!  To tell the truth, the vinyl had to be encouraged to stay on the flameless candles too, but it did work and stay put once it was on there. I'll have to see if they make it through the year in the Holiday Decor box in the garage for next year's display! I'm not sure they will.

I decided to stick with the Haunted Mansion theme with the larger candle, so I cut out the crystal ball shape with my Silhouette SD. I could have done two, one for the other side, but I decided not to since it wouldn't be seen the way we have our display. And because the smaller candles were so small, none of my other Haunted Mansion ideas were working. I decided instead to go with the pirate hook as a nod to the Pirates of the Caribbean. I really like the one-eyed pirates on the candle to the left! And they look really pretty the way they flicker and glow. I may have to try this for other holidays as well.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Halloween Decor | Madame Leota Candle

As I mentioned last time, we like to use the Haunted Mansion as our inspiration for Halloween decor. And since we leave for Disney in just a couple weeks, it certainly puts us in the mood! I created a candle for my favorite spider candle holder (which it appears, PartyLite no longer makes.) This candle has Madame Leota's incantation printed on it. For those of you who may not be as steeped in Disney tradition as we are in the cottage, Madame Leota is the talking head in the crystal ball in the seance room of the Haunted Mansion, just before the ballroom in the attraction. What you may not also realize, is that Madame Leota was modeled after a long-time Disney Imagineer, Leota Toombs Thomas. You can read a little more about her over at Magical School House, in a wonderful interview with her sister-in-law.

Making this candle was easier that I expected. In fact, this decorative candle tutorial from Heidi Swapp was incredibly easy to follow! I love the endless possibilities it offers! So first, here's the tutorial:



Secondly, here's the print for my candle. You can download my Madame Leota's Candle jpg for free if you'd like to use it. It's made for a 4.5" tall candle with a 9" diameter. This is what it looks like flat:


I could go a little crazy with this! So many great things could be done. I love the idea of three different sized candles, each with a hitchhiking ghost! I'll let you know if I try any more. And please let us know if you try this too! We'd love to see what you come up with. Remember to tag us on Instagram, or leave us a comment below. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Halloween Decor | Hitchhiking Ghost Windows

 When it comes to Halloween, I like the tamer side of things. I think that's why I gravitate to Disney's Haunted Mansion. It's spooky and fun without traveling into horror in any way. That's my idea of Halloween. And so we tend to be the Haunted Mansion house in our neighborhood, in that we play a CD of the area music, have a fog machine, carve our pumpkins to resemble the hitchhiking ghosts, and now, we will have the same hitchhikers in our windows!

I created these Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts PNG files using photoshop. If you would like to purchase them for your own uses (scrapbooking or otherwise) you can find them in my Etsy shop. For this project, I simply imported the shapes to my Silhouette Studio software. I traced them using the trace tool and cut them out of adhesive vinyl. Remember when you are cutting out anything with words, think about reversing the image before you cut it. It depends on whether you want them to be legible to those in the house, or those on the street.

Once they are cut use the transfer paper to adhere them to the windows. I did not and wound up tearing off the middle hitchhiker's arm at the elbow. I just pieced it together again, but it was disconcerting! Now you're done! You have recreated the ghosts in the graveyard scene from the Haunted Mansion attraction! For a sharp silhouette, pull the blinds or the sheer curtains and turn on all the lights in the room so the light shines through, but the rest of the room is obscured from view. I can't wait to see how many trick-or-treaters (or their parents) recognize our grim grinning ghosts!

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Disney's Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts T-shirts on Redbubble

New to my Redbubble collection is this fantastic Hitchhiking Ghost silhouette T-shirt! So excited to get these out there in time for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and those fall break trips!

The thing that impresses me most about Redbubble is the variety of options they provide. So when you purchase your shirt, it can be the fit you want, and the color you want. If you like organic cotton, they have it. If you want a retro baseball T, they have it. Like long sleeves, V-necks, girly fits? They have it. And they offer hoodies as well. Seriously, you can customize so much. I am really proud to have my designs on Redbubble. Oh, and if you are looking for a little something for your iPad, check out these awesome cases! You know you need one, right?

And if your really like the image, but have other plans for it, remember the PNG files are offered for personal use in my Etsy shop for a mere $3.00. That's a steal! Get ready to scrap those Disney memories, or get that spooky Halloween decor ready. These grim grinning ghosts would be happy to oblige.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Disney's Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghost Crafts

I love vintage Disney, there's no denying it. So the Haunted Mansion is always a must do for me. And despite my disbelief, the Halloween and fall decor is already showing up in the craft stores! So I figure it's not too early to introduce a new product in my Etsy shop: Three Hitchhiking Ghosts PNG files.

What I love about these is that you can do just about anything you want with them - except sell them. You can create your own digital scrapbook pages, you could print them for your Project Life pages, you could print them and make cards, you can convert them to digital brushes, you could import them into your Silhouette software and make vinyl shapes, etched glass, gift tags, you name it! And you have plenty of time before Halloween is here to make your ideas a reality!

You will receive 4 digital files, each ghost separately and one image of all three of them together. I figure you just never know what you might need until you start crafting. These grim grinning ghosts are for personal use only, but please do share with us what you create with them! We love to see what our readers come up with. Tag us on Instagram (@MerryweathersCottage) or post here in the comments. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!