Embroidered Sugar Skulls

Happy (belated) Dia de Los Muertos! I made this sugar skull embroidery pattern for the holiday and just had to share it! You can find out how to make some of your own great sugar skull embroidery patterns here.

To stitch your own sugar skull you will need:

Fabric of your choosing
A variety of embroidery flosses (I prefer bright colors for these)
needle
scissors
embroidery hoop
transfer pen

You can use the above pattern that I created, or make one of your own using the templates on my Sugar Skull Embroidery Pattern post. Once you are satisfied with your pattern, use an embroidery transfer pen to trace it onto your fabric. Then stitch away in the colors of your choosing.

I found these neat glow in the dark threads online and ordered some to weave in with my embroidery floss. I'll be honest, the pink didn't work at glowing nearly as well as the green or white, so in the future I'd probably leave it out, but it was fun to try something new!. This would also be a great project to experiment with adding small beads (you could even get small strands of beads and use the couching technique to stitch your patterns with them!).

Happy November!

Make Your Own Sugar Skull Embroidery Patterns

This time of year isn't just for Halloween. For all those of you who celebrate Dia De Los Muertos, here is a great tutorial with templates to create your own sugar skull embroidery patterns.

Materials needed:

Pencil
paper
Printed out templates. Or you can use your favorite photo editing software to make patterns on your computer.

Start with a skull outline from the template below and you will be well on your way to creating your pattern:

Next, add in your eyes, nose mouth and any additional decoration. Here are some templates you can use, but feel free to draw extra embellishments yourself:

Many times sugar skulls have floral eyes, so there are several here to choose from, add in any extra swirls, etc you want, just try to keep your pattern from being too difficult with tiny details. Here is my finished pattern:

Then, start stitching! I will be working on this later this week and sharing it on the blog when I am finished. Happy Stitching :)

I will be using these neat Glow in The Dark Threads I found to add some extra wow factor to mine, you can sew with them on their own or blend them into other threads :)

Glow in the Dark Halloween Mug

I've been playing around with some glow in the dark acrylic paint and while wandering the aisles at a local Dollar Store I found a plain mug and knew it needed some glow in the dark flair! I decided to paint a face on it for Halloween, it looks quite a bit like Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas and I am just fine with that. I'm especially fine with the overall cost of this project (with coupons I spent about 4 dollars for all the supplies, and additional mugs would only cost an extra dollar each as there was plenty of paint left over.

To make your own glowing Halloween mug you will need:

1 plain mug in color of your choice
DecoArt Glow-in-the-Dark Paint
paintbrush
Extra acrylic paint colors of your choice for mixing (optional)


Start by making sure your mug is clean and dry. Next, mix your acrylic paint. I like the DecoArt glow in the dark paint because you can mix it with other colors in a 1:1 ratio. I wanted a really vibrant glow here, but decided to add in some glittery acrylic paint in gold for this mug. I've tried mixing in other solid colors and it still works, but dulls the glow a little. These glitter paints mix without dulling the glow in the dark paint, and they came in this sample pack for a dollar, great because I didn't need a lot of extra paints but it gives lots of color mixing options.

Next, I painted on my eyes. I did this first because I wanted to base the rest of my face on the size and distance of the eyes. After painting them on to my liking, I put in the nose holes and then the crooked grin.

I put on quite a bit of paint, so to aid in drying evenly I carefully laid the cup on its back, so the face I painted was pointed at the ceiling. If I hadn't done that the paint would have eventually pooled at the bottom of the eyes and possibly ran down the side of my mug. Another option would be to flip the cup every so often while drying so that it rests on the lip and then base of the mug.

*Note: While this paint works great on glass surfaces, I recommend hand washing to give your mug the longest life. I also recommend letting the paint sit out to dry for at least a week before you use and wash it at all.

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