DIY Vintage Lace Sugar Skull T-shirt

Debi Beard of Debi's Design Diary created this fabulous sugar skull using vintage lace and beads on a t-shirt. Debi shared how to make this shirt in a great video tutorial. You can download the template from her blog post, or create your own template. I love seeing how people create skulls from non-traditional art materials. This lace sugar skull is very wearable and unexpected. I might have to follow Debi's tutorial myself and make my own version. You can find out what else Debi is creating, on her Facebook, YouTube, and blog.

To learn how to create this Vintage Lace Sugar Skull T-shirt, follow this handy tutorial.

Dia de la Abby: #68 Confetti Skull

Since New Years Eve is Saturday, I felt the need to make a sparkly skull with confetti.

This is one of the most sparkly and messy pieces that I've made. I was fun to do. My daughter even made her own designs using tissue paper and white glue. Since this was fairly easy to do, I wrote a tutorial to show you all how to make your own. Of course, you can make any design you want using this technique.


Every other Thursday in the 5.0 year, I will post my own Dia de la Abby creations   Every Thursday in the 4.0 year, I posted my Dia de la Abby creations and occasionally tutorials with instructions on how I made my pieces. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on  Facebook, Google+ and/or Twitter.

Dia de la Abby #61: Anatomical Skull Makeup

Last Sunday, we went to a zombie themed wedding. Yep, zombie themed! Since costumes were encouraged, I decided to do skull makeup.

Photo by: Carlton Kotalo

Full costume

I've done a basic skull and sugar skull makeup before (both with tutorials). I wanted to do something more anatomical, so this is what I chose. I wrote a tutorial for how to do this same makeup, which is great for Halloween. I painted the ribcage on an existing black satin corset. I made two blood splatter flowers. One for me and one for the bride. I painted a spinal column on my throat and chest, so it would coordinate with the ribcage corset.


Every other Thursday in the 5.0 year, I will post my own Dia de la Abby creations   Every Thursday in the 4.0 year, I posted my Dia de la Abby creations and occasionally tutorials with instructions on how I made my pieces. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on  Facebook, Google+ and/or Twitter.

Dia de la Abby #35: Charcoal Skull

I've been drawing since my parents let me have a crayon and have worked with many different mediums since. I've had charcoal in all of the many different art kits that I've had, but oddly enough, I never worked with it. This is my 1st time doing anything with it. The medium seems similar to graphite pencil, but darker, which was nice for shading.

I watched two video tutorials to learn how to use charcoal. They were about using charcoal to draw a skull, which I thought was appropriate given the subject matter.
Charcoal Drawing of a Skull Part 1
Charcoal Drawing of a Skull Part 2

I used my handy skull model to draw from. It was back lit towards the left with the only lamp in my living room. I could have moved it around, but I liked the heavy shadow because it made the skull more eerie. I used a soft charcoal pencil for the outlines and shading, a white charcoal pencil for the highlights (which still ended up gray), a rolled paper smudge stick and normal smooth sketch paper. It took me about an hour to do.

Every week in the 4.0 year, I will post my own Dia de la Abby posts as well as a tutorial with instructions on how I made my piece. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on Facebook.