Creating an Ofrenda for Dia de los Muertos / Day of the Dead Crafts Using Beebeecraft and Dollartree

Hola my crafty tribe. I have so much creative inspiration to share with you today for your altar or your ofrenda for the Days of the Dead coming up. So I'm going to start with this Dollar Tree Plastic Skull and I'm just getting it all finished around the edges. It's a little bit rough. It is molded together in two pieces so I'm just trying to make that seam a little bit better. So I trimmed it down any excess pieces and then just sanded it smooth and then I also just went in with some drywall mud like some joint compound just to make those seams a little bit smoother. So I just put some on with my finger, waited for it to dry and then sanded it all smooth and then you can hardly see that seam at all. So it was worth it in my opinion but depending how picky you are about your skull. So just got it all smooth and then I went in and painted it with a primer and paint in one that I have. If you have some chalk paint or just a couple of layers of acrylic will work as well. So now I'm just going in with some orange nail polish. I just want to get that nice metallic sheen that you can get from nail polish so I'll be using that a lot in this video. I have a collection of all my old nail polishes. Hopefully you guys have held on to some too if you're a creative person. I know they come in handy for a lot of things. So I am just blending in some yellow with some orange because I want a nice bright background. So I have these beautiful, beautiful stainless steel filigree sugar skulls that were sent to me by BB Craft and I love them. They are such good quality. They came ten in a pack so I'm going to hold on to the other ones. I'm hoping to actually make some jewelry with some down the road as well but we're going to use two for this. So I just trimmed off the little loop at the top there for making the jewelry with and then I'm just going to be gluing them into place with some super glue. These are such great quality though I can't say enough about them. I think it would take a lot of strength to even bend them. They're just really good quality stainless steel in this beautiful teal color. So this is the super glue that I have on hand that I'm choosing to use and then just using the little tweezers to hold them while I pop them into place. Just setting them down into that little eye socket area and you can see why I wanted that nice bright yellow just to make them pop and stand out. And then once I had that in place I actually did a Google search for Mexican Flower Clip Art. So just typing in Mexican Flower Clip Art and then Butterfly Clip Art. These were some of the images that came up. Because they're not too big I was able to just print the previews just on my LaserJet printer but if you don't have access to a printer usually a library or something is great for that. So I highly recommend it. It makes such an affordable way to get beautiful images for projects like this. So I'm just going in with some matte Mod Podge and just Mod Podging them all to this skull and just making it look decorative for my ofrendas. I just thought there were some beautiful images. I love all the colorful Mexican designs. It's so beautiful. So just going in figuring out what looks good and what works around the little eye areas here. So many to choose from. I cut out a bunch on the weekend. I don't mind doing that while I just sit and watch TV. It's kind of a nice little therapeutic thing to do. And then I just went in and shaded in the teeth here just with a grey felt that I had on hand just to give them a little bit more definition. And then these are from the Dollar Tree as well. So I'm just fixing them up a little bit. The flower paint job was a little bit messy so I just went in and touched it up with some black and then going over top with some nail polish just to give it that nice sheen and metallic look of the nail polish. And then for these I'm going to be gluing on some glass cabochons that were sent to me as well by BB Craft. And again I am just loving the quality of these and the detail of them. There's 14 different designs and you actually get 140 skulls so you get 10 of each design. And they are just fabulous. Everyone was perfect. No defects or anything. They're just perfect. So I'm going in with some E6000 glue for the permanent hold and then I just did a little bit of hot glue on the other half just to hold them in place while the E6000 dries. And then I'm moving on to make my own marigolds. So I looked at a bunch of YouTube tutorials and just kind of meshed them all together in my head and this is what I've come up with. So I just started folding over crepe paper streamers. So just that you get at any party store for party decorations. And I started with an inch and three quarter fold and then just folded 20 times on top of itself. So it's like a little roll folded 18 to 20 times. And then I would staple it in the middle, cut out this little circle that is one inch and three quarter inch diameter or four centimeters approximately. And then once I have that all cut out I used some kind of decorative cut scissors on the edge. I first started with those little tiny ones and then because I was doing so many I actually ended up using pinking shears which are a lot of sewers will have them. If you don't have those though just make sure you kind of take some breaks in between. It's a little bit hard to cut them out with those little tiny scissors. Totally possible but just take your time. So then after I had them all floofed up into the marigold shape I just wanted to do some dry brushing, some details on the edge. So what I've done here is just a very light amount of paint on my brush. What we refer to as dry brushing. And then I'm just touching the edges of the paper with just a little hit of paint. So just a very small amount just to give it that little hint of extra color on the edges just to give them more definition and detail. And then to make these look a little more finished I just painted the back of them black. I don't know that they'll really be visible but I just kind of like to go that extra little bit there. So I actually started figuring out that if I put a tiny little bit of glue in the center of these little marigolds as well that would help them stay kind of in their floofy rounded shape. So I'll show you a little bit of that down the road. But I just put four on each the little puppy and the kitty, the little spirit guide animals. And I think they look so cute. I was really happy with those. So moving on I won't be showing you guys a lot of reveals until the end. We'll just save everything for the end because there is so many projects in this video. So I did find a quicker way of doing these was stapling them before I cut the circle out. And then you could see me using those pinking shears there. They were just a little bit stronger and easier to work with. The little scissors, the little decorative ones work fine but just know that you're going to have to take a little bit of a break with your hand once in a while. So then this is where I'll show you here. Just putting that little bit of glue in the center and then squishing it all together up in the middle there just helps them stay a little bit more rounded and poofed out easier. And then I found this aqua color at the Party City store and I just thought I would add that in too. It's such a bright fun color. So I actually did two rolls of each color of streamers. So ten rolls all together. And then I have this pool noodle from Dollar Tree that I'm just cutting down. I cut about six and a half inches off of it and then I'm going to use the rest of it. So just less six and a half inches. And then I'm just going in and gluing on all the little marigolds. This is going to create an arch for my altar for my Day of the Dead. So I'm just taking my time and just randomly putting all the marigolds all over it. And the hot glue does melt the foam just a little bit so you just have to hold it in place until it's getting to the point where it's dry. And although it does melt the foam a little bit, they end up sticking wonderfully. So it doesn't feel like any of them are going to come off. It ends up just kind of melting right into the foam. And then I have these two pieces of wood that are actually from a crib that I took apart. So they have this nice finished edge. So I'm just going to take advantage of them because I have them. If not, just look for a piece of scrap wood or anything you have. You just need about 28 inches is what this length is. If it was a little bit longer, then you could just keep that extra six inches on your pool noodle, just depending on what scrap wood you have available to work as your base. So then I'm going to paint it black. So just going in with some black paint. And I did two coats just to get nice coverage. If you are using the acrylic paint, you might just want to cover it with Mod Podge. I actually ended up using a latex paint, so I think it's going to be durable enough. And then just in a craft bin that I had bought secondhand, there was this foam with this beautiful, what I think is kind of a Mexican Spanish type print on it. Just really beautiful. It almost looks like one of those woven rugs. And I just thought it was so perfect for this. So I just traced out the base of this little arch that I'm going to be making and then cut it out. So it's actually this fabric is laminated to the foam already. And then I'm just gluing the foam to my base that I've made out of wood. So I'm just using some Aliens tacky glue, just spreading it all over this foam. I like that glue. I think it works great for for most things, for gluing most things. So I just went with that and then just lining them all up, getting them glued down to the base. And then for the pool noodles to arch on top of this wood, I'm just going to drill some holes to drop some dowels down inside of. And it's a nice tight, tight fit. So I actually don't have to glue anything. So I'll be able to take this apart for storage and just lay the pool noodle flat and just have this bottom base piece flat as well. So just showing you there that I just drilled some holes. Those little dowel pieces will stay separate, but then it can all work together. So I was super lucky. I found this bag of butterflies last year at a thrift store. And then I just have some little skewers to put them on. I thought I was going to put some little white dots on it with this correction fluid, but I ended up not doing that. The wood is just dyed. So I found that it just ran right into the wood. So I just decided to just leave them as is. So I'm just painting the skewers black. I cut them into three different lengths, kind of random so that they're not all the exact same length. There's just a variance from anywhere from about one to two inch variance. So they're anywhere from like three to four and a half inches long. And then I just took my time and hot glued them onto the skewers. So they won't be super strong. I actually plan to take them off for storage as well. So they just poke into the pool noodle and then come out easily. So now moving on to this little banner that I wanted to make. So I found these beautiful flower stickers. These are from Dollar Tree as well. And then these little skull beads that I just love. I've used them in a previous craft video as well. They are also from BB Craft. So I'm part of the BB Craft YouTube program. I'll have a link to that in my description box. And I will also have a link to all these products that I'm using from BB Craft. Super impressed with these. I love these little skull faces. They are so sweet. Just so perfect. So what I did was I just melted a little hole in the plastic flower sticker and then put a little dab of hot glue and then just pushed the little bead skull right down into the little hole. So here you can get a close-up look. They are such great quality. I just love these little beads as well. And you get 120 of those in a package too. So then to hang this banner I decided to just use a piece of black ribbon that I had. It's almost like a little thin twill tape. As well as just a aqua color kind of, it's a little bit heavier than thread but not quite a yarn. I'm not really sure what you'd call it. Just kind of a random string that I had laying around. So I'm going to use those together. And then I have these little tiny wooden flowers that I got from a local dollar store. And then also these little cupcake toppers that are from Dollar Tree as well. So it's going to go big plastic flower, little wooden flower, the little cupcake topper skull, and then another plastic flower. So that's the pattern I'm trying to create. So just leaving enough room to be able to glue that down. And then just sticking them down onto some orange cardstock paper. So I just want to have them not be sticky on the back. I just wanted to stick them down to something because they are stickers. And then we'll just cut around them. So I'll just show you that here. So then once I had them all down onto the cardstock, I just took my time and cut out around each flower shape. And then I realized I would have to just kind of reinforce them with a little bit of hot glue just to make them stronger. So these wooden flowers come unfinished just from my local Dollarama store. So I just thought I would finish those with some nail polish as well, just to get the nice metallic sheens and that nice finish. So I'll just show you a few moments. I just did random colors and patterns, just trying to fill them all in. So hopefully you guys will find something in this video that inspires you to maybe start your own ofrenda if you've never done one before. So here is what the package looks like for the cupcake toppers. So I'm just pulling out the little, it's like a little plastic toothpick sort of thing that goes down into the cupcake. So just pulling that out and then getting them glued down to the middle between the two sticker flowers and then putting the two little wooden flowers. And then I also found these little tiny plastic rose stickers as well to put on the top just to cover the glue where it meets the ribbon that it's attached to. And then they were just a package of white roses so I thought I would just go in and give them some color as well just because we're doing all these colorful projects. I just love it. And then to cover up more of the glue, just like that goes beyond the little roses, I thought I would just use these little stickers as well. They're just little tiny gem stickers from Dollar Tree as well. So then I knew I would have to have some water on my altar so I wanted to have some pretty water cups to hold them in. So I found these beautiful colorful little mugs at Dollar Tree and as well I found these stickers there this year too. So these are actually meant for glasses. They're a little bit big for these mugs but I made it work so I thought I would just add in a little bit of color. So I just went in with some nail polish and did some little dots on these as well. And then I got a little carried away so I started coloring in the flowers and the nose and just doing some little swipes of color, swipes of green and yellow and pink, just anywhere that kind of went along with the design of the sugar skull. And then before I put the stickers down onto the glass I just gave them a little wipe with some rubbing alcohol just to make sure there was no residue or oils or anything on the little mugs. So they actually stuck really well except for the little top part. It was just a little too wide and it had to bend a little bit too much so I just put a little, I ended up putting a little tiny bit of super glue just on the top of the sticker and that worked out pretty well. So they're all holding well now. And then for the next project I have these little plastic beads and my wood burning tool. They're not actually beads, they're just plastic bones but I'm turning them into beads. So just putting the little hole so that I'll be able to put a ribbon through them. And then I also painted some wooden beads with the So I painted 32 all together, four of each color. So four of eight different colors of nail polish. And then I'm just threading them onto this ribbon. So just the two beads, a bone, and then I'm using those glass cabochons again. So again these are from BB Craft, so beautiful. I think you can see all 14 designs here. And then I would just sandwich the two together with some hot glue over top of the ribbon and then they actually look like a big glass bead. I just love them, they're so beautiful. So all together there was 32 beads and it worked out to be a great length to just kind of drape underneath that arch that I made. So you'll see that in the reveal at the end. And then I have found this little wooden dish at a thrift store and figured out that it's perfect for making tassels. And then I ran into this thread I think at some point last year too, it's kind of a fuzzy, like a wooly type thread. So I thought I would just make a super colorful tassel. So I just did about 20 wraps of each color. So all the colors you see here are wrapped around this little wooden dish about 20 times. And then once I had each of the colors wrapped, I just go in with a little piece of ribbon just because I thought the ribbon I had would be the strongest. And then just as you're pulling it off of this little dish here, I'm going to tuck that ribbon underneath so that I have it all tied together at the top to start forming my tassel. So I was just wrapping the colors right on top of each other so they will show up once it's a tassel. So here we go, we're just pulling it off of this little dish here, getting it all tied together tight at the top. And then to create the little tassel shape, I just went in with some of the white fuzzy nylon and just kept wrapping it around. I think I did that at least a hundred times. And then once you have that all secured, I just ended up gluing it with some of the Aleene's tacky glue. And then you just cut apart the bottom. So where the fold is at the bottom, just cutting that apart, giving it a little trim just to make sure they're all neat at the bottom. And then I'm just tying it to the garland. So just tying the ribbon that's at the top of the tassel to the ribbon that's coming through the garland. And then I just tuck the ends back up into the bead just so that they're not so visible. So just got them pushed up through there and then cut them off. And then on the other end, I decided to use this little porcelain skull from Dollar Tree. And I'm just going to tack that on with some E6000. So I just wanted to secure that last bead with some hot glue just so that if it does come apart from the skull, that all the beads won't come tumbling off. So just going in with some E6000 and a little bit of hot glue to hold that while the E6000 dries. And then I found this sweet little cross at Dollar Tree. So I'm just going to make it a little bit more vivid, give it some more color. So I just sponged on some of this aqua color. I did two coats, let that dry. And then I painted the base of it with some black paint just so it'll blend in with things a little bit more. And then I just kept one of the little clip art pieces to glue onto this little cross here. So just super quick and easy, but just enough to make it more colorful. So I just mod podged that on with some of the matte mod podge and then just sealed in the rest of the paint. And then for my papel de picado, I'm just using this felt garland that I found at Dollar Tree. So next year hopefully I'll be able to make some handmade picado out of tissue paper, but for this year I'll just use this felt garland. I thought it was really nice and colorful and bright and kind of represents the wind on my altar. And so here is the final reveal, what everything's looking like together. So I was really happy with this for my first ofrenda, and it just gave me such a wonderful connection. I just, I love the idea of it, of just cherishing your ancestors and having a day to remember them. So for now I just have all four of our grandparents. So my husband's grandparents, and then my grandparents, and my mom that I've lost. It's been about 12 years now. So this was just super therapeutic. I really enjoyed doing this. I highly recommend it if you do have loved ones that you're departed from. It's just such a nice way to remember them and cherish them. And it's actually already given me dreams about my mom and my Grammy together. I had a wonderful dream just a couple nights ago already. So before it's even Day of the Dead, this is already working. I love having it in my home. It's such a comforting remembrance to have. So I'm just loving it. So I actually went to a Latin bakery and found some of the skeleton bread, or skull bread. I'm not sure how they refer to it, and I'm not quite sure the Spanish name. I'll try and write that in my description. But it's a sweet bread that has the look of crossed bones on top of it. I'll just show you here what it looks like inside. So I was able to find this at a Latin grocery store in Calgary. That was kind of a fun find. I didn't even know it existed. So it's a sweet bread that has like a sugar on top. My boys are excited to try it after. And then I just put out some of their favorite treats. So Chad's grandma loved peanuts in the shell. My mom loved Mars bars and caramels. So I just put those all over the altar as well. And then there's water in the little mugs. Here's that little Mod Podge skull. So I've learned that there's a lot of different ways to build an altar. And it's celebrated differently in different parts of Mexico and other countries in South America where they celebrate it. So it's hard to kind of nail down exactly what I needed to do, but I'm just kind of finding my way. And I know it already works. So I'm really happy and pleased with it. I just love it. And it's bringing me a lot of comfort. So I just highly recommend it. So hopefully this video has inspired you to maybe add to your ofrenda or to create one. If it has, hopefully you can give this video a like and maybe consider subscribing. And hopefully it can bring you more inspiration in the future. I just want to thank you so much for clicking on this video and for watching the whole way through. Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful Dia de los Muertes. And hopefully you'll have your family to celebrate it with you. If you haven't seen my video with these other projects here, the little porcelain skulls and the tree that's up a little bit higher, the love sign and those little purple sugar skull faces, those are just in my previous video which I will have linked in my description box as well.