By Neha Kumar
Since our family has spent more time indoors this fall than ever before, we’ve been crafting non-stop with our daughter Kiyara. Like most toddlers, she’s constantly on the go, but the sight of interesting art materials always entices her to slow down and investigate. The joy Kiyara emanates while being creative motivates me to include art projects as part of our daily routine, no matter how simple the activity may be. And with fall in the air and Halloween right around the corner, I wanted to share some of the spooky creations we’ve crafted lately.
We found most of the materials needed for these projects in our home, outdoors, or at the grocery store, but we did buy a few items from Amazon (please choose “Little Wonders” as your charity through Amazon Smile).
1. Pumpkin Painting
Pumpkin carving is quintessential Halloween fun, but in order to avoid the associated mess, Kiyara and I have stuck to painting our pumpkins and decorating with these facial decals and items from around the home. We love creating different pumpkin characters and coming up with origin stories for each. Finding snappy embellishments like wigs and feather boas adds to each pumpkin’s mystique!
2. Paper Bag Monsters
Puppet shows are popular in our household right now, and monster puppets are an especially big hit. We begin by painting a brown paper bag and decorating with eyes and ears. Then we let our creativity really take over as we work on the small details, such as patterns, eyelashes, and teeth to make our monster puppets look really special. The best part is watching children put on a spirited show with the characters they’ve created.
3. Leaf / Acorn Ghosts
Inevitably, by the end of every walk, my toddler has collected a number of artifacts from nature to bring home. Lately, we’ve been making use of all the leaves and acorns she finds by turning them into little ghosts. We paint the leaves and acorns white and embellish them with ghost faces using a permanent marker. It’s a super simple activity and the ghosts turn out to be pretty cute!
4. Glitter Jack-O’-Lantern Jars
Glitter jars, aka “calming jars,” often have a soothing, therapeutic effect on children. Many parents have found that these jars are an effective, electronics-free distraction for their child, and a mesmerizing jack-o’-lantern glitter jar is a great twist on the concept.
For this, you simply need an empty jar (I used a glass apple juice bottle) and a Sharpie marker to draw a jack-o’-lantern face on the bottle. Then we fill the bottle with mineral oil, a drop of oil-based orange food coloring, and two tablespoons of orange and black glitter. After screwing the lid on the bottle and glueing it to make sure it stays secure, we enjoy watching the graceful swirls of glitter together.
5. Cardboard Haunted House
We have been putting all the boxes delivered to our home to use by transforming them into haunted houses. We begin by painting the boxes black and layering on yellow or orange construction paper windows to give the house an eerie look.
As for the inhabitants of these houses, we’ve been using toilet paper rolls, construction paper, and googly eyes to craft staple Halloween characters like witches or vampires.
What Halloween projects have your families been working on? Please share your ideas with us below!