Dust off your craft bins and stock up on supplies – it’s our first DI-Friday of Year Two and the countdown to Halloween is on!

Have you ever walked through a certain section in a craft store and knew there was a great project just waiting to be made from the supplies in that aisle, you just haven’t thought of it yet? That’s where I was at with the felt aisle last year! Awhile back, I used a sparkly white sheet of felt to add extra detailing to the skull and crossbones on the top hat for my Dr. Facilier costume, and it really stuck with me that not only was felt a super easy product to work with, but it had a TON of applications for use! I’d been wanting to work with it again, but was just waiting for the right inspiration to hit…
Fast forward to this past Christmas season. My parents have this awesome Christmas countdown calendar that’s a big, plush tree covered in pouches with festive touches and a little stuffed Santa that moves from pouch to pouch counting down the days to Christmas. I was over there one evening when I found myself thinking about how cool it would be to have one of those for Halloween. It could be a haunted house, with a little jack ‘o lantern that counts down the days to Halloween, and… oh my gosh! Before I knew it, I’d found my inspiration and had a fully realized felt project in my mind!
The first step was to figure out what kind of haunted house would be the base for the calendar. Would it be taller? Wider? More Gothic elegance or rundown shack? I sketched out a few ideas, but when I was at the store buying felt, made the decision to keep the house shape itself fairly simple, opting for 12” x 18” gray felt rectangles for the house and black felt for the roof. I also picked up a few sheets of black, light purple, lime green, and bright orange felt for the pockets, as well as some sheets of white and yellow for accents.
Since the haunted house was now going to be a simpler design, Devin and I had the idea to include stitching throughout the calendar to add a bit of detail as well as accent colors on the patches, so we bought some yarn in as similar of colors to the ones we were going to be using for the countdown pockets. Finally, we got 4’ of dark blue fleece to use as a backdrop and a dowel rod, which was also going to make hanging the calendar much easier.
We started by cutting out 3” x 3” squares from the black, orange, purple, and lime green felt to be the pouches and then stitching 3 of their 4 sides with a variety of whip and running stitches. This step proved to be a little tricky as some of the yarns we were using to sew would snap as we were pulling the stitches, so Devin and I had to take our time – but once we got the hang of it, things moved along fairly quickly and considering that Devin literally taught me how to sew while we were working on this project, I’m mighty proud of how it all turned out!
From there, we laid everything out on the fleece backdrop, placing the house and then the patches, before adding the numbers to them. Initially, we had considered using stickers or stencils to make the numbers on each pouch uniform, but as we started working on them, decided it was more fun to give each pouch its own feel with differently styled numbers, using a black permanent marker and silver paint (since black permanent marker wouldn’t show up very well on black felt!). The result was a fun, eclectic mix of numbers that I think really embodies the spirit of Halloween!
Once the patches were completed, we started working on some of the calendar’s extra accents. Devin stitched the front door that acts as Day 31 and the house’s upper windows while I assembled the countdown jack ‘o lantern. I was able to stitch the pumpkin pattern by having guidelines on the back of the front piece of felt. Once it was finished, I glued on the backing as well as the smiling jack ‘o lantern face pieces.
After that, we laid everything out and as soon as it was all placed where we wanted it, we broke out the hot glue guns and went to town! All of the pieces were glued in place and then we trimmed the fleece on the sides of the haunted house before looping the fleece around the dowel rod and attaching a braid of orange and black yarn to hang the calendar from. As a final touch, Devin freehand cut out a black cat silhouette to stay by the front door and I attached small hook-and-loop fastener circles to the cat and the back of the pumpkin so that the jack ‘o lantern could sit by the front door on Halloween!
One of my favorite things about crafting is being able to take an idea for something and make it a reality, and in this case, I’d have to say that the Halloween countdown calendar turned out even better than I’d imagined! At the core, it’s a simple design made with materials that are easy to use, but adding the stitching accents really did wonders to elevate the overall feel of the project – and I learned some basic sewing skills in the process, too, which was awesome! I set out to make something really special with this one, and I definitely see us hanging this calendar to count down the days of October for years to come.
As I said in DI-Friday intro post for Year Two, I kept coming back to the idea of wanting to make things that would do more than sit on a shelf while I was brainstorming projects to feature on the blog this year. Of course, DIY Halloween decorations will always have a special place in my heart, but I really wanted to push my creativity and see what else I could come up with. This first project was a huge success, and I can’t wait for you to see what else we’ve got in store for this year’s DI-Fridays!
Happy Crafting!
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