Spiders!

The other day we made these adorable hand print spiders. They do these every year, at just about every school, but I couldn't resist making some of our own.









It was nice to make a craft that we could include the baby in. More of the paint ended up in his mouth than anything, but he had a blast....and it's non-toxic!

Then I made a giant spider web with my 2 year old buddy. I decided to do this part outside, so I wouldn't be sweeping up glitter for the next week. It would have been a good idea if the wind didn't kick up just as he started shaking the glitter.  After some frustration and a lot of good team work, we finished off the web with our spiders and Happy Halloween letters.

Spider Donuts

These cute little spider donuts were made by sticking pretzel sticks in mini donuts for legs, and attaching m&m eyes with frosting. I stole this idea straight from pre-school and recreated it for a party at the elementary school.

Toilet Paper Roll Pumpkin

I think this pumpkin is cute and was really easy to make out of a toilet paper roll and construction paper. First I covered the toilet paper roll in orange paper and cut five paper strips. Then I had my three year old friend help me tape the strips to both ends of the toilet paper roll. We rolled up a piece of brown paper for a stem and finally taped on a leaf.

Boo!

These are some little footprint ghosts that we made a couple weeks ago. Aren't they adorable?

Me want cookie.....num num num num!

A Cookie Monster and a Zoe visor that I made for Halloweeen.

It's Carving Time!

This past weekend we decorated pumpkins at my mom's house. These are mine. The first one is the classic barfing pumpkin. Poor little guy drank that whole bottle of brandy and is now paying the price.
My second creation is the heart pumpkin. I cut out little hearts from paper and taped them all over the pumpkin, and then I spray painted it. I think it's kind of cool.

Handy Candy

Today we made handy candy. The candy corns were on a sheet of scrapbook paper I had. I just cut them out and glued them around the hand prints. I think these are really cute.

Another pumpkin?

"What" you say, "another paper plate pumpkin?" The kids wanted to paint and I wasn't feeling very creative. Yeah, it happens. Even the craftiest crafters, can't be crafty all the time.

Pumpkin Time

This is an easy little pumpkin that was made from construction paper and a paper plate. I cut out a bunch of orange squares and had the little bambino glue them all over the plate. Then I cut out a curly q for a leaf and a brown rectangle for the stem and had him glue those on too.

Mummy Wrap

Yeah, I know, it's only September and I'm already getting ready for Halloween. I love holidays though, and Halloween is definitely a fun one. You can't beat free candy. I've experimented with all sorts of methods of collecting the most candy. One year I thought I'd hit the "rich" houses and get full sized candy bars and other rich people stuff. I soon discovered that rich people are actually really cheap. That's how they got so rich in the first place. Plus those mini-mansions are pretty spread out, and each driveway is like 2 miles long. I've successfully lied and collected an extra piece of candy from each house for my "sick brother" and of course I've switched masks and hit the same houses twice. There is a house of Chinese people that live up the street from my mom. One year they didn't have any candy, so they gave me a dollar. Score!

I have little ones that look up to me now, so my days of lying and cheating are over. The real best way to get the most candy is to start early, and stay out late. Plan your route ahead of time. Stick to middle class neighborhoods where the houses are close together. Use a pillowcase to avoid tear outs, and move quickly. I once took a group of kids trick or treating until their feet bled. No pain, go gain. It's one night of your life, suck it up for the candy!

Anyway, I wanted to share a favorite Halloween game of mine. The mummy wrap game is a hit with kids of all ages. Toilet paper is funny. Wrapping your friend in toilet paper is even funnier. Older kids can separate into teams and race to wrap each other up the fastest. Younger kids just enjoy wrapping each other up. The best part of the whole game (at least for me) is breaking out of the toilet paper once you're all wrapped up. I buy the dollar store toilet paper, four rolls for a dollar. Last time I planned on two rolls per child but had a bunch left over. It's not the cheapest game, but it's well worth the money. The kids will thank you!

Bowling

This is a cute little game I made for a Kindergarten and Pre-school Halloween party one year. I like to volunteer in the classrooms and my favorite thing of all is planning parties. I usually set up four or five stations with a game or craft at each one and let the kids rotate around to all the stations. Table top bowling is always something easy to make. The bowling pins are just toilet paper rolls. You can staple any kind of character on them. For Halloween I used ghosts, but I have also done Leprechauns and Reindeer. If you aren't a great artist, you can print pictures of whatever you want. Ghosts are really easy to draw, so I made my own on card stock. They are stapled to the bowling pins. (don't use glue..they will fall apart) The balls are actually squishy little pumpkins I found at the dollar store. You can use little gourds from the grocery store and cut off the stems. For other holidays you can use any little balls you happen to have lying around.

And here is a picture of the game in use. Awww! Gutter Ball!

Pin the ____ on the _____

I like to make pin the ________ on the __________ games for class parties. Here is a pin the nose on the jack o lantern and a pin the nose on the Rudolf.

I just use masking tape to pin on the noses. It's no problem to take off and reuse, especially if you draw on the shiny side of poster board.

There's me, getting ready to blindfold a little guy to play.

Halloween is coming

With Halloween right around the corner, I thought I'd share an awesome Halloween snack/craft. These are hollowed out oranges filled with fruit cocktail. You just cut off the top of the orange (like you would a pumpkin) and carefully scoop out all of the insides. This took some time to get it all cleaned out, and was wasteful, but was really worth it to see the look on the kid's faces when they saw their snack. When it is hollowed out, you simply fill the orange with fruit cocktail and draw a pumpkin face with a sharpie. These are definitely not something you want to try to make for your child's whole class, but for just a few kids, these are really fun.