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:

Milwaukee's Day of the Dead Celebration 2017

On this second day of Dio de los Muertos, I have a ton of photos to share with you guys from a local event in Milwaukee. There was a parade, as in previous years. There was more dancing this year than I remembered. Everywhere I looked, there was someone or something to take a picture of. People looked so beautiful. This first photo is one of my favorites. She's reminding me of Snow White, but with sugar skull makeup.

There were people in the park with photos of their loved ones.

And there were tributes, like this ofrenda for Sharon Jones. I'm a fan of hers, so I had to take a few photos of this.

A link to Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings: "100 Days, 100 Nights"
That's my favorite song of hers. That video looks pretty believably vintage, doesn't it? It says under there that they filmed it using two vintage cameras they found on ebay.

Some bright skellie stuff for sale:

I think this skeletal hand is holding a candle?

The Badass:

The parade made its way over to the park area:

Pretty cool hat, hey?

The back of his ribcage:

And the front:

I was so happy with the timing on that one!

This outfit was reminding me a little of Jim Carrey in The Mask. It's a different mask, hat, and suit but still.

This one cracks me up. I think I've made that face on more than one occasion!

How beautiful is the blending on her makeup? So pretty. I think I just noticed a turtle drawn on her chin.

I really like how this one turned out, of all three of them. And I like the way they fill the composition.

This one is dramatic, probably because she's concentrating on taking a photo and the wind is blowing her veil around. Do you see the little skull peeking out in her headdress?

These two were on stilts and they were pretty talented with them! They were really dancing around at one point.

Boo! I'm finding this one pretty creepy as I'm looking at it now. I keep thinking I see eyes in there and then I don't.

Check out these tiny boots the stilts are resting in!

This picture was a fun surprise, because I got it while just moving my camera around the crowd and snapping pictures. I didn't even know there was face painting going on at the time!

Cool paper flower hat:

These next two make me say "Aww!"

Pretty spooky!

This is another favorite photo from the day. I keep wanting to make one of those flower headbands.

OK, now we're onto some really cute little kids and some dancing. There were three different dance segments. The first had all these little kids in masks.

The children danced and then this lady in white came out and whirled around her skirts and veils. They were dancing to that "La Llorona" song. If you're familiar with that song or the La Llorona story, you would probably interpret this dance the way I did. A link to one of the many versions of La Llorona on YouTube:

La Llorona (tradicional)

I thought this was an especially pretty sounding version of the song. So I'm taking a pretty good guess that this is the ghost La Llorona:

The La Llorona story is incredibly sad. Some of you who watched Grimm might remember an episode wrapped around this legend.

Maybe someone can help me understand this next set of dancers. They had flowerpots on their heads. I'm taking a total guess here and saying this dance had something to do with nature or maybe something seasonal? I'm probably saying that because of the flower pots and the natural autumn look of what they were wearing.

So cute. I enjoyed seeing all the different variations on the pot decorations.

I think these are shells? You could definitely hear them as the dancers moved. Again, anybody who knows anything about this, please let me know!

There were three drummers

So now we're getting into the last dance group. There were so many bright colors and feathers. For someone who loves taking photos, it was hard to know where to look first or who to concentrate on!

It was messing with me to see these sweet kids' faces under these pretty realistic looking skulls. I'm sure this is true to the Aztec dancing clothing. It's just that my brain was trying to process two things at once that I don't normally see going together.

This photo shows you how fast they were moving. I really like the movement of her braids with the feathers. That looks like a good way to wear your hair for dancing.

This last photo was one I took of one of the windows on The Walker's Point Center for the Arts. As you can see from my reflection, it was much warmer on the day I took this. I took this one on that visit to the antique store I shared. It's more or less down the block.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed these photos. I'd like to hear about any Day of the Dead events where you are. And if anyone out there can tell me more about the dancers pictured, please do!