Crafting my mini Ofrenda

Halloween transitioned pretty nicely into Day of the Dead over here. I've had a craft project going for a week or two, and I'm excited to have it ready to share! So, here it is - my little Day of the Dead Ofrenda:

And I do mean little, because that box is only 6x6" in size! I am pretty proud of myself for working this tiny, because sometimes working with tiny details can drive me nuts. But I stayed patient and am really happy with the results. So happy, that I took about a million photos of the little guy. :)

But I tried to limit myself with how many I'm sharing here. I cut apart silk flowers and glued them to the top of my little scene.

And that papel picado is made from tiny squares I cut from a heart-shaped doily. I read that there is actual, real-life size papel picado in metallic sheets that you can buy now and that some people do that for special occasions. I've never seen it, personally.

You can see the little altar is set with mini breads, empanatas, and tiny sugar skulls. I made a little plate out of cardstock and the napkins under it are squares of washi tape. The skull in the frame is from a piece of washi tape too. I made the little sugar skulls from some Crayola modeling clay I got at Dollar Tree. A good deal of this project is from Dollar Tree.

I painted the sides of my box with flowers and got a chance to use a tool that's made for nail art on this. That worked great to make the tiny dots. For those interested, this is the tool I used:

Nail Art Dotting Tool

That tool is seriously a good use of a dollar. I don't know how I would have gotten some of these tiny details done without it.

So, as you can see, I set up a whole altar space around my mini altar.

This is the way I feel it is meant to be seen, at night with candles.

I love this photo! That big, peeking skull sign is a Dollar Tree purchase from a few years ago.

These sugar skulls were once plain white skulls I bought at Michaels years ago.

I love how they look by candlelight.

There's something about glitter and candles!

To give you guys a quick background of this craft, it started with one of these boxes from Dollar Tree.

See, when you flip these decorative boxes over, you get a nice little niche to build a scene in.

The piece of furniture is also from Dollar Tree and can be found in the toy aisle. It's meant as dollhouse furniture. You can get little chairs, tables, and beds there too. I thought to take a pic of this after I began painting it, but you get the idea.

I took a few in-process shots, like this one of the side. Those pink pearls are again, from Dollar Tree. They come in sheets that are pre-glued. They stay in lines, but you can cut the material between them if you only want to use just a pearl or two.

I painted a little plant design on the side of the furniture and placed more pearls on it.

This penny will give you an idea of the scale I was working in.

This snappy skeleton was another piece of washi tape. The roll has a pattern of plain skeletons on it. I added the accessories.

You may have noticed the sugar skulls around my altar space. These came as a plain wood garland, I believe from JoAnn's last year. I spray painted them white (because who would want to get into those grooves with a paintbrush?) And then used some puffy paint and glitter on them.

I think they turned out like cute little cookies. I am yet to string them on a rope. In part, because I'm not sure how to do that without them all sliding into one another. Any ideas? Maybe beads between them?

These really would be cute as cookie designs.

You may have also noticed this piece of art I had sitting under the altar. It's from (drumroll please) Dollar Tree. I saw this the other day and thought it was a Polish design, but when I got it home it said on the receipt that it was Mexican. So that's a good fit for this. I just love it.

And I have to share these two books that I got for inspiration from the library. They are really worth checking out, if you can. There are so many craft ideas in these.

Book by Paula Pascual ~ Beautiful photos in this one

Authors are at the bottom of that book cover. Amazing craft ideas! 

In related news, my mom and I visited a café I'd been wanting to check out, called La Finca. Here it is, looking good with those beautiful autumn shrubs outside.

La Finca is in St. Francis, for those of you who are familiar with Wisconsin. I'd been really wanting to get over there recently because I read that they had some Day of the Dead decorations out. And they did! This is above the entryway:

How cute is this sugar skull dog?

We had a seat right next to this community Ofrenda.

This close-up is my computer wallpaper now.

I kept seeing this little chocolate skull peeking over at me.

This guy was hanging across from me.

We both had Mexican hot chocolate and it was amazing. There were some good, hot spices in that and the whipped cream was a nice addition. The people working at La Finca were super nice and it was just a good atmosphere. So I'm sure we'll be back.

P.S. ~ I have another skeleton to share with you guys. Remember "Sidekick" the little lizard from the Meier store? He's good to go in lime green now:

Day of the Dead at The Domes

The Milwaukee Domes hosted a Day of the Dead event this year. It was a pretty cool experience, getting to see The Domes at night. There are three domes, each with a different climate and the plants that grow in each. There is a tropical dome with more rainforest type plants, a desert dome with cactus plants, and the show dome which has traditional flowers (for a Wisconsin spring or summer) and a gazebo.

I started with this photo because it's my favorite from that night. It's also my computer's wallpaper right now. This is a close-up of an altar/ofrenda. This is one of the warmer looking altars I think I've ever seen. So many candles, colors, and lush looking food. Note that kitty skeleton in the back.

But back to the beginning, here's what we saw on our walk up to The Domes. They were lit beautifully.

So, those are the three domes and here are some close-ups of the individual domes as they changed colors.

They look almost like spaceships to me.

The domes are made of glass and during the day they let in a lot of light.

I was surprised to receive a bag of candy on the way in! I'm going to assume this is all Mexican candy. All of it was new to me and so far it's different from what I'm used to. I tried one of the Mangomis (doesn't taste like much at first but gets really Mango flavored after a few minutes), one of the Mara Caramelos (a kind of bitter orange), and a strawberry candy I really liked. I can't see it in my pic so I must have eaten that before taking this photo.

We started in The Tropical Dome. That dome was very dark, and what light there was was an intense blue.

This frog is cool and little creepy under normal well-lit conditions. He was like some giant frog out of a scary movie in the dark. I'd guess his head is 2-3 ft wide.

"Coco's Ofrenda" was in this dome. There was a Coco theme overall. I still need to see that movie! I know enough about it to know why there's a little guitar on this altar, though.

Onto The Desert Dome! This dome had the most done with it. There were skeletons every which way. They seemed to fit with the desert theme. There are always a few (animal) skulls in this dome, even under normal circumstances.

A closer look at that big light above shows it to be the moon, as a giant lamp anyway. This really looked like a second moon from outside the dome!

These next few are going to be pretty dark, so I hope you can tell what's there. I think these skeletons look pretty cool in the shadows, so long as you can see them. 😉

We're getting into some scenes that inspired me to put together those porch displays for trick-or-treat night.

Yoga skeleton!

This is one light on a string of adorable skull lights.

Here are few more from another awesome string of lights. I'd love to have either one! I don't think I've ever seen sugar skull lights for sale.

How cute is this? These skeleton animals have been turning up so many places this year. I think they're perfect for Day of the Dead displays.

This was the side of an altar. I liked the way that plastic skull was glowing with the lights around it.

This is one of the few photos I used a flash on. I mostly liked the look of the skeletons by candlelight with no flash, but every now and then I wanted to see what was there fully.

I think this one got into my subconscious because I bought one of these very skulls at Target today and have it in my own little Day of the Dead display with some candles at this very moment!

Kissing skulls

Now we're back to that great altar in the first pic. There was all kinds of rope light action going on there.

Frida? I like the ghost candle in this one. I'm not sure what's going on here. Maybe the candle is reflected in the glass only partway?

She was hanging out next to the ofrenda. I like the way her face is half in the shadows.

A tombstone with paper flowers and candles:

Now we're in The Show Dome. I was able to get some photos of the lights twinkling all over the glass of the dome. And there's that gazebo I mentioned earlier.

Isn't that pretty? Here it is mid-change.

There were some random woodland creatures hidden in the plants. An orange squirrel?

And I don't know what this is. It sounds silly now, especially while I'm looking at this picture, but this scared me at the time! I guess because without using the flash it really blended in to the plants. So I think for a split second I thought there was really an animal on the ground.

As I mentioned earlier, there was a Coco theme to this event. So those of you who've seen the movie might recognize some of these characters. They were walking from dome to dome, singing.

This next one is a similar photo, except look at the guy in the red hoodie! Scary! I'm sure he was just moving his head quickly as I took my pic, but it's still scary.

There was a spooky sighting on the way home. Check out these plates! This car was a dark red, to boot! Now, "Devilln" could be a Cadillac thing. Like he's "Cadillac Devilln" or... The Devil? De Villain? Hmm... These are some cool plates to see around this time of year, anyway!