How to Create Dias de Los Muertos Hanging Artwork - Creative Team Thursday with Karen Gaunt

Hello everyone! It’s Karen Gaunt here again for another creative team post for Jessica! Since we're still in October, and after seeing all the amazing projects for the Frightful Fall bloghop I decided to work with the Halloween theme.

I’m a little obsessed with skulls and embroidery right now so I wanted to create a project that combines these loves. 

I’m working with the Flowers, Pomegranates and Leaves stencil from Stencilgirl and the Heart in Star stamp from Rubbermoon Stamps. The stamp was just the perfect edition for this Dias de los Muertos inspired hoop!

So first of all I wanted to create my fabric to work my design onto. The stencil already has such a great “Mexican” vibe and the geometric shapes of the flowers works so well to create a great pattern. I went with nice bold colors and carefully stencilled them over my fabric. I just used acrylic paint for this. If you have fabric paint that would also work well. As the fabric is unlikely to require washing this is not essential.

I traced around my hoop size on paper and sketched out a skull shape. If your drawing skills are not up to this, grab one of the many free printables out there.

I stamped the “eyes” onto my paper using the Heart in Star stamp. I wanted to make sure that I had my eyes the correct size to fit the stamp inside of them.

I cut my skull out of my black felt using the template I made. The black felt I picked had a bit of glitter on it; I thought it was much more fun than just plain black.

I added some teal paint to a strip of fabric and drew very lightly around the eye holes of my skull. This meant I knew exactly where to stamp to get my “eyes” in the correct place.

I centred the eye patch on the skull and adhered with some fabric glue. I then glued my skull down lightly into the fabric already in the hoop so I could make sure that it was centred.

I then picked out some nice contrasting orange embroidery floss. I’ve gone around the outside of the skull and the eye holes using a buttonhole stitch to further secure the felt and to add a decorative border. If you’re not up to tackling this stitch it would look just as good with a border of running stitch or backstitch.

I’ve then added in more details in different colors to the skull face. Again this is optional; I could just as easily have left it with only the outlines. I really love how the skull turned out! The bright threads really pop against the background of the skull. The design can easily be something that is on display all year round, not just for Halloween.

I hope you enjoyed the project and it encourages you to get working on something lovely that you can display at home as well.

Karen Gaunt is a mixed media artist with a passion for color and a soft spot for paint. She works in a regular job full time and daydreams all day about the moment she can let loose in her journals in the evening. She's a mother as well and loves nothing more than creating with her daughter in their matching art journals. Karen believes that making Art is for everyone and loves to encourage and inspire others to make. She enjoys trying new techniques and colors and believes that there is no such thing as too many art journals.  Visit her at her blog and on Instagram.

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THANK YOU KAREN for an awesome post! 

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