Kids’ Halloween Projects

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It’s that time of year again when all of the department stores are filled with Halloween costumes, candy, and fake spiders, cobwebs, plastic pumpkins, and other Halloween decorations. While the most common activities for Halloween are to trick-or-treat and go to parties, you can use the time to express your creativity as well, especially with kids. Use this time to enjoy creating Halloween inspired crafts with the young ones. There are many crafts you can do for Halloween, like creating your own costumes, trick-or-treat bags, or decorations. The kids will definitely enjoy, and it will give them something more to look forward to on Halloween than extra cavities.

Instead of spending money on pre-made Halloween decorations, try making your own along with the kids. Make Halloween ghost lanterns made out of milk jugs. Simply take empty milk jugs and use magic markers or paint to draw ghostly faces on the jugs. Then, insert miniature lights or candles into the jugs. Put them outside during the night for a ghastly effect. Or, use different colors of craft foam to cut out Halloween related shapes, such as pumpkins, bats, ghosts, and witches. Then, hang up the pieces around the house. You can tack them to the wall, or make a Halloween mobile using the decorations. Use piper cleaners and fuzzy craft balls to make miniature fake spiders. Hang them from white threads in doors ways and from the windows. To give the spiders a home, use cotton batting to make fake spider webs. Just simple take the cotton batting and pull it apart, giving it the appearance of spider webs.

Another fun idea is to create your own trick-or-treat bags for the kids. At any craft store, you can buy plain tote bags. Give the kids fabric markers, fabric paints, felt, fabric glue, and whatever else you can think of to let them decorate the bags. Then they will have their own personalized trick-or-treating bags. If the kids are old enough to use a sewing machine or needle and thread, you can create tote bags from scratch. Or, you can simply use fabric glue to piece the tote bags together. You can also decorate baskets and have the kids use those to collect the candy.

One of the reasons kids look forward to Halloween is all of the sweet snacks they will be having. While you’ll want to limit the candy they have, it can be fun to make Halloween inspired treats with them. Bake a cake and have the kids decorate the cake using multi-colored frosting and Halloween themed cake toppers. You can make pumpkin cupcakes and frost each one to look like a Jack-o-lantern. Or, fill a punch bowl with red juice or soda, and add (clean!) plastic eyeballs for a scary eyeball punch.

Also, by putting the costumes together yourselves you will not only save money, but it will be fun as well. Many costumes can be put together with a simple trip to a thrift store. For example, for a witch, just buy a long black dress, and get a broom. For a scientist, buy a long lab coat and wear inexpensive reading glasses with the lenses removed. The ideas are endless; just use your imagination.

Photo: flickr.com/photos/vee_smith/3028666601/