creepy creations – part 1
“Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange? Come with us and you will see! This, our town of Halloween!”
– The Nightmare before Christmas
Well kiddos, it’s that time of year again. And if you remember from here and here and here, we go a little bit crazy for the crafties at Halloweenie time (well, maybe only a *tiny* bit crazier than usual). Something about the warm orange glow of a freshly carved pumpkin calls to my not-so-very-buried inner child and demands copious amounts of glue and glitter. Lucky for me, I have a little friend or two who are only too happy to get paint in their hair and oblige my ridiculous decorating whims!
These late summer and early autumn days have been so pleasant that I’ve been pretty insistent on going outside and soaking up every possible moment before the cold weather sets in. This means that arts and craft time had been put on hold for a bit. When we ran into the rainy days of autumn (what felt like 2 weeks straight of nothing but cold and constant rain), T was all too happy to stay inside with our paint-pots and glue-sticks. We keep everything fairly simple around here, since craft time is also nap time for the littlest ones, everything has to be able to be dropped and cleaned up at a moment’s notice. To all of you who think you can’t do it, or don’t have the time, I say you’d be amazed what fun you can have in a half-hour of craft time with a toddler!
Tissue Paper Votives:
We first made these last autumn (step by step instructions can be found here), and it was so easy and so pretty that we repeated the project for Valentine’s day, and just did it again for Halloween! (We recycle the same vases each time.) I was impressed with how well T did with these last year, but this year she pretty much rocked them out all on her own. She even chose the faces herself (after looking at loads of pumpkin, ghost, and Frankenstein images online for inspiration). All I really had to do was cut the face pieces out for her, and she was good to go! She liked the first one so much, we had to do another and another (this happens often in this house) We put the black face pieces (we used felt) under the tissue paper, so although they look amazing at night, they’re rather boring during the daylight hours. T likes them because they’re “peek-A-boo faces” but we might do it the other way around next time. LED tea light candles can be found at the Dollar Tree 2/$1 – scoop them up, they’re awesome! Teaball loves that she can ‘light’ them all by herself!
I can’t help but take a picture of T’s ‘concentrating face (every time).’ She’s just too cute when she gets into something!
Construction paper critters:
I am always on the lookout for fast, clean, and simple crafts that our *just* turned two friend Baby A can do with us, and sometimes the simplest projects are just as exciting to my little ladies as the more involved ones! A little bit of cutting out the night before (and faith in the washability of glue-sticks) turned into these super simple Halloween decorations that both girls had a blast putting together and love hanging on the wall!
I think their favorite was the ghost. Which was the simplest one to make, being made of 100% construction paper!
Thanks to A’s mom for digging through her craft bin in search of black and orange paper for us at 10 pm the night before we made the kitties – and finding some! A’s mom ROCKS!
Gorgeous Gourds:
One gourd + paint & glitter = 1 hour(ish) of happily QUIET children
T wanted purple. A wanted pink. These are their standard color choices. But when T heard that A was getting pink, she changed her mind. A did the same thing in reverse. So both girls got both pink and purple paint. Then they chose pink glitter with hearts and flowers. Um it’s HALLOWEEN, kids!!! We ended up with the girliest Valentine’s day gourds you’ve ever seen. Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen a Valentine’s day gourd? Is there even such a thing?! *ponders*
Shhhhhhh. . . can you hear that? No? Blissfully content wonderfully SILENT CHILDREN!
It’s amazing. They were both SO good and SO independent and totally fine on their own for this craft that I even got to paint a gourd, too! Mine wasn’t girly enough for their weird Valentine’s club, I’m afraid. . .
And somehow they managed to stay clean and neat and barely made any mess at all!
Huginn, Muninn, and me 
Uncle Gabey said,
October 28, 2010 at 7:41 am
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! My little angel is SO SMART! And did you see the rare shot of Lady Alex? SO CUTE!!!!!!
Kendall said,
October 28, 2010 at 8:33 am
Looks like fun!! I like the peek-a-boo faces ALOT! The frankenstein rocks. 🙂 The construction paper critters are cute too! Love it!
Sharon said,
October 28, 2010 at 10:26 am
I seem to not remember actually finding orange anything but nonetheless the crafts turned out awesome!!! Alex points to her creations all the time and says ” I made that”. It’s so cute and she’s so proud of herself. You’re the best with all of your silly craftiness!
Now to get Alex to stop treating her mini pumpkin like a ball. lol
oh and btw the tissue paper candle holders are stinking awesome. Way to go Tea-puff! She’s getting to be so big and she really does say the darnedest things.
wecki77 said,
October 28, 2010 at 12:14 pm
LOVE the crafts. I’ve trying to be good with doing the crafts. I must say, your pics of the lanterns are much nicer. I love the refletion.
Sarah said,
October 28, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Those are so cute! I envy your craftiness!
deb said,
October 28, 2010 at 1:29 pm
a barely there mess works, I barely make messes myself 🙂
and I love those votives… might convince my youngest make those .
and what can I say to you. but that you get me. you know. and I am 99 % free. soon.
love to you.
deb
Kathleen Scott said,
October 28, 2010 at 7:22 pm
I’ve been traveling and am just catching up. This is the cutest ever and I LOVED the lamps. Wish I lived close enough to attend your craft school. How do you ‘glue paint’ the vase (1st step in your leaf vase post). And I never heard of LED tea lights. What a GREAT idea, plus they’re from the Dollar Store, which is in my budget.
I want to start trying some of your projects with my 2 year old grand niece. I think she’d love these.
Me said,
October 28, 2010 at 8:27 pm
We got our tissue paper, glue, and vases from the dollar store, too, so this little craft is totally in anyone’s budget – which is awesome considering how cool it turns out!
Glue painting is simple! Just make a mixture that is half water and half glue (this doesn’t have to be an exact 50/50, but you DO want to use a washable glue that dries clear). Take a piece of tissue paper and hold it where you want it to be, then paint over it with your glue mixture. When it gets wet, the paper will become very frail and mold to the glass (you can see T doing this in the image above). Do the entire votive like this, layer the squares for a nice effect!
Good luck! I’d love to see the end result if you choose to do this!
ma said,
October 29, 2010 at 6:47 pm
momma j, you are awesome!
Bryna said,
October 30, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I LOVE your craftiness!
patty said,
October 31, 2010 at 10:12 am
LOVE those votives!!
why don’t you link THIS post?? it’s TOTALLY halloween! 🙂
or maybe you have photos today or tomorrow of your halloween goblins??
thanks for adding my link to your site! 🙂
carissa... brown eyed fox said,
November 1, 2010 at 2:23 pm
oh… how fun!
the smiles on their faces are priceless! enjoying it all!
thanks for all the fun ideas!
popped over from pattys!
happy november! :O)
stained « Huginn, Muninn, and me said,
February 28, 2011 at 5:38 am
[…] the same glue-and-tissue paper method as we did to make our pretty autumn and Halloween votives, we did two entire windows! The method is so simple, all the little ones could help (though […]