Meet Korinne Zimmerman, also known as Crafterella in the creative realm.  This artsy lover of all things Halloween is best known this season for her "instant cemetaries" shown below, which are perfect for mantels and other holiday display zones.  She's giving one away to a lucky follower this week, as a matter of fact. Simply follow her blog and leave a comment there to be entered!  (Korinne blogs at http://www.crafterella.blogspot.com and sells at http://www.crafterella.etsy.com.)

How would you describe your craft style in one sentence?

I'm eclectically crafty; I work with a variety of mediums and techniques and have an ever-evolving style.

So Halloween is a favorite holiday. Tell us more about how this interest influences your creative life.

Halloween is my wedding anniversary and a big event for our kids. It seems like we talk about Halloween all year long.  I have a large collection of Halloween books, magazines, patterns and recipes -- and of course a lot of handmade costumes( I'd love to own a costume shop)!  I like to make unique things, but I also want to be able to produce more than one item at a time and have it be affordable.

We just bought our first house in May, and I'm hoping to eventually have a Halloween theme in the entire house.  I don't want everything to be black and orange, but I definitely want Halloween items displayed year-round.

This year I'm also participating in a huge Halloween swap. It's a great way to exchange handmade items, and I get to try out a few new techniques and see what the crafting community thinks of them.  That was how I decided to start selling my instant cemeteries.  I received so much positive feedback and requests that I decided to give it a try in my Etsy shop.

Crafterella's instant cemetery
Where did you get inspiration for the instant cemeteries?

The original idea came from the book:  Halloween: A Grown-ups Guide to Creative Costumes, Devilish Decor, and Fabulous Festivities, by Joanne O'Sullivan.  Her idea was to use free images from the Internet applied to foam core and given easel backs to make a cemetery display.  I was unable to find any images that I wanted to use, so I decided to draw my own.  I used pictures I had taken in cemeteries for inspiration, drawing them in pencil first, then going over them with a fine point pen when I was satisfied with the design.  The first set I made was for our wedding reception.  I found that storing the tombstones was going to be really difficult with their rigid backs and they might get bent or dirty.  Finding a storage solution became important. I wanted them to be easy to store and find so they could be used year after year. 

Making the easel backs collapsible was a start.  The first few sets came in tins I found at yard sales that I painted and decoupaged to match.  I realized that I wasn't going to be able to find enough tins to keep up with the demand.  I had been looking for an alternative, but everything was so expensive, and I didn't want the container to drive up the price of the finished creation.  I found empty paint cans at my local hardware store and knew I had found my container. The rest is history!

What’s your next big craft project?

I'm working on lots of ideas: spooky spice racks and hand-drawn labels, a new set of tombstone drawings, instant zombies, gothic photography, and some papier-mache projects are all in the works, but not until after Halloween.  I'm pretty busy cutting out cemeteries and working on my swap partners crafts!