creepy creations – part 2

October 29, 2010 at 9:19 am (craftiness n' colors, halloween, holiday, picture post)

“A friendly ghost is all I need”

– The Eels

Crumples:

Remember the ghosties we made last year? SuperPuff does, too. And the moment she heard that Halloween was on the way, she started asking to make them again. These things are so ridiculously simple to make and look so silly and cute hanging around the house that I couldn’t say no. These definitely fall under the categories of cheap, simple, quick, and (more or less) mess-free. I think we rocked out 8 of them in 30 minutes, give or take. . .  A was even able to make her own ghosties with a little bit of assistance!

daybaby A carefully glues spooky eyes onto her ghostie

If you want to make your own ghosties, you can find our original post with instructions (if you need them!) here. Tissue paper, felt (or construction paper for the faces), googly eyes, and pipe cleaner can all be found at the dollar store, and you WILL have leftovers for other crafts. Like the tissue paper votives, this is one of those projects that can be adapted to lots of different crafts. We used the same simple concepts when T demanded that we make jelly fish after our aquarium trip! Not only did she request a repeat of this one, she asked if we could do it again the very next day! After we added 2 more ghosties to our growing population, I knew that we had to find another spin on this fun activity. Switching the white tissue paper out with orange, adding more crumpled paper, and flipping the whole thing upside down turned out some super simple and way too cute Jack O’ Lantern fun! T calls these her “Crumples. . .”

Tball harnesses the power of the “RAWR” face to aid in the crumpling

We looked at Jack O’ Lantern images online to inspire us. T chose the face, I did the cutting. We used a pencil to curl our pipe cleaner stems into ‘vines’, and glued on a ripped bit of brown construction paper to cover the tissue paper ends and act as a ‘stem.’

which face do YOU think is the cutest 😉

Just like with her ghosties, Teaball had such fun that she wanted to make another one, then another one, then another one. And like the ghosts, these look so whimsical and sweet all around the house that I couldn’t say no . . . I think we may have gotten carried away. But then, if we hadn’t it wouldn’t be us, neh?

Peek A Boo Ghosties:

As a warning, there are waaaaaaaaaay too many pictures of the following craft. It was just so cute, and T was having so much fun with it, that I couldn’t put my camera down (not so very unusual if you know me). This one was a very hands-on for mommy project, with lots of patient wait-for-it-to-dry time for the kiddos, but when it was finished, it’s actually a toy that can be played with – so awesome! When I decided to do this, it was very spur-of-the-moment, so we used what I could dig up in our basement/craft bin. If we were to do it again, we’d make it more kid friendly by using plastic or paper cups  and straws or popsicle sticks instead of mini terracotta planter pots and bamboo skewers!

First we painted our container and let it dry. Then T decorated with foam stickers (from the $1 store)

I cut out the ghost shapes and cut the sticks down to size. T glued the face on, then folded the ghost over and glued it to the stick. We put a bead under the ghost to keep the stick from falling out of the pot. This might not have been necessary. . . Again with the waiting to dry. . .

Take a moment to admire the cuteness. . .

Then we put it all together. The ghost goes into the pot and the stick hangs out the bottom. . . the ghost should be the right size to disappear into the pot.

See?! CUTE!

Cute. Cute. CUTE!

Glamorous Gourds:

Last year we made a glam gourd and named her GOURDelia (for obvious reasons). This year we did it again (I suspect this will become a tradition). I gave all my yarn away, so me n’ T were digging around in the basement looking for something to use as hair. I heard her little gasp when she found the Easter basket stuff from last year, and I knew JUST what she was thinking. What could be more glam than iridescent Easter-grass hair?! A similar gasp from T signaled that she had found a very glittery piece of red craft foam. She demanded a hair bow, and I obliged (naturally)

A bit of glue and glitter later, GOURDelia 2 was born! Except that T didn’t want to name her GOURDelia. THIS gourd was to be named Juliette. Princess Juliette. You see. . . T doesn’t get jokes. And we have a pair of daybaby twins that go by Cordy and Jules. Or Cordelia and  Juliette. So to T, it was only obvious that since our last gourd had been dubbed GOURDelia, this one was Juliette. Duh. PRINCESS Juliette, because she has a sparkly crown/bow.

Teaball and Princess Juliette - friends forever!

THEN we painted gourds (posted pics of that yesterday). My daughter looked at her beautiful pink and purple sparkly Valentine’s gourd. . . then she looked at Princess Juliette. . . then she looked at me and said, “Mommy, this should be her dress!” while attempting to balance one on the stem of the other. “Can you stick it for me, please?!”

I did.

Ridiculous.

I love my MUMMY!:

T has been into mummies this Halloween, even though she doesn’t *exactly* know what they are, she likes the look of them. I made mummy dogs (like pigs in a blanket, only mummier – more on those to come), and that really catapulted her interest. When she asked to do a mummy craft, I knew just what to do! This definitely falls into the fast, cheap, easy, and not so messy category. We used fabric scraps that we had lying around, but you could do this with tissue paper, party streamers, or even toilet paper and I imagine it would come out just as cute!

First T and A glued googly eyes onto toilet paper tubes. While those dried, they ripped the fabric into strips (I cut several slits at the top of the fabric to get them started)

T harnesses her RAWR face again to give her ripping strength.

Then the girls dipped the strips into a 50/50 ish glue to water mixture and wrapped them around toilet paper tube.

Baby A only just turned two, so she needed a bit of assistance with the concept of wrapping around, but she did pretty well and really got the hang of it by the end of the craft. T was able to do this one on her own.

The end result is two of the cutest toilet paper rolls you have ever seen!