Kid Friendly Halloween Crafts

Sammy, the kids, and I have been having a blast preparing for our Halloween pumpkin carving party on the 21st! Want to see what kind of awesomely spooktacular crafts we've been up to!? I found many of these ideas on Pinterest and then just made them our own.

Keep in mind Molly is 3, Anthony is 5 and I'm not a fan of complicated and hard. Haha! Nothing is more irritating than seeing a super cool idea you would love to do with your kids, but wind up not doing it because it's trickier or more time consuming than you thought. All of the crafts we do with the kids are TRULY kid friendly, done in an hour or so. So go ahead and try these ones! Promise you'll have fun!

Monster door - You will need streamers (any colors of your choosing), white paper plates, construction paper, scissors, and tape. First, I cut out circles from black construction paper and glued them to the paper plates for eyes as well as cut all the teeth, also from construction paper. Sam and the kids cut all the streamers to various lengths with their kid friendly scissors. Once you have all your streamers cut, just tape them to the door to form your desired face and hair! Anthony was a big helper with ripping pieces of tape and getting them ready for Sam and I to use, especially with the streamer wrapped doors. That took a lot of tape! Anthony even did his own monster on his bedroom door. Pretty cool, huh? We love them.

Ghosts - You will need white paper plates, white streamers, black construction paper, black ribbon (or white!), glue (or tape) and a hole-punch. First, I punched holes in the paper plates and tied the ribbon for hanging while Sammy helped the kids trace the eye and mouth shapes (we used a small glass for the eyes and just made up the mouths) then cut them out with their kid friendly scissors. Next, I cut the streamers in different lengths while Sam and the kids glued the faces on the front of the plates and streamers on the backs. We made 13 of them and have them hanging out around the house. BOO!!

Monster rocks - This one is my favorite! You will need rocks of various sizes (I will say that smooth river rock would have been easier and "cleaner" looking, but I wasn't about to go buy pretty rock for this project....we just used rocks we found in the driveway!), different colored paints, paint brushes, googly eyes, and glue. I used a hot glue gun. First, the kids and I painted our rocks. We didn't worry about the bottoms, just the tops and sides. This got a little messy, so make sure your table (and kiddos!) are covered with something you don't mind getting paint on.

We let them dry and then I went and painted mouths, teeth, and nostrils with my little paint brushes. I was going to let the kids help with this step, but I felt like being selfish and doing this part myself. ;)

After the faces dried, the kids picked out what googly eyes they wanted for each rock and I hot glued them on. 

Voila! We made 12 of them at first, but went and made 6 more. So now we have 18 and we're going to use them as our party favors for all the little kiddos that come and just keep whatever is left for ourselves. :)

Ghost Feet -  You will need a piece of wood (or anything, really!), black paint (or a dark stain....we used left over ebony stain), white paint, paint brushes, and cute little kiddo feet! First, paint or stain your surface of choice black. Next, paint the bottom of a little foot and press onto your surface with the heel at the top. Paint on your ghost eyes and there ya go! I painted the date on one of the wood's edges so I would remember the year we did this cute project.

Mummy Jars - You will need a few mason jars, medical wrap, googly eyes, and glue. I used a hot glue gun. Oh, and some of those battery LED tea lights. I don't use flame tea lights in the house with the kids. First, cut your medical wrap into strips if need be. Mine came in a  sheet (weird!), so I had to cut mine.

Next, take your glue and dab a bit at the top of the mason jar and press on the end piece of one of your strips. Wrap that strip around your mason jar (maybe dabbing on some glue here or there to keep the strip secure) and then glue the end of the strip when you get to the end. Use as many or as little strips of medical wrap as you like until you get the coverage you want. I used 3 strips on the big jar, 2 on the medium jar, and just the one on the small jar. The kids were able to help me wrap, but I handled the glue gun of course. 

Once wrapped to your liking, glue on your googly eyes. The kids picked out what eyes they wanted and where the wanted them and I glued them on.

Add your tea light and enjoy! After I was done, I got to thinking it would have been fun to let the kids color the wraps with markers before wrapping the jars. You know, tie-dye mummys! Maybe next time. 

Bloody Fun -  Sooooo, I REALLY wanted to make my own "bloody window." I'm really glad I did. It's AWESOME and gives our living room that little extra spooky factor! You will need wax paper, scissors, tape, red paint, and a paintbrush or two. I measured my living room window, rolled out a ton of wax paper, then taped the strips together according to my measurements. Next, I layed the wax paper out in the yard and because Anthony was in school Molly was my special helper and we went to town splashing it with red paint. I even did a couple hand prints too. When the paint was dried, I taped it to the outside of the window. You could tape yours to the inside of the window if you wish, but since we have a covered porch, I'm not concerned about rain or anything damaging the wax paper. And this way it looks like there are bloody zombies outside trying to get in. Spooky! ;)

Next, a bloody shower curtain! You can buy these (I found some on a few popular Halloween sites ranging from $7-15), but what fun it is to make your own! You will need a shower curtain (may I suggest a fabric one and not vinyl), red paint, and a paintbrush or two. Just splash your red paint all over, do a few hand prints, then let your paint dry. I should have used a fabric shower curtain. I'm finding some of the "thicker" paint splatters are chipping off our vinyl curtain....this is a bit annoying as I'm sick of sweeping up these paint chips off the bathroom floor! Haha, Ahh well. Next year we'll buy fabric instead of vinyl. It still looks SUPER FREAKEN COOL and I'm excited to see everyone's reactions at the party when they see it. 

Spooky Drinks - You will need colored tape (I used blue painters tape), googly eyes, and glue. Again, I used my hot glue gun. Super easy to do! First, remove the straw. Wrap juice box with the tape. Glue on googly eyes to the front and then glue straw back to the side. I also took a pen and just marked on the top where the straw punch was. Again, Anthony was in school, so Molly was my only helper and she helped me wrap the juice boxes and helped with the googly eye placement. 

For this spooky gross batch of drinks you will need empty bottles, paper (or whatever you want to use as a drink tag), string, hole punch, and a couple different Gatorades. These were old apple juice bottles that the kids drank and I saved. I filled them up with three different Gatorades.....red, green, and yellow. Don't ask me the flavors, I do not know! lol I made my tags with regular paper, but I'm sure you could make nicer ones with craft paper or something. This was good enough for me. I hole punched the tags, tied them to the bottles, and called it a day. Yummy. Pee, anyone??

There ya go! Our Halloween crafts thus far! We have a few more up our sleeves, but mostly in the pumpkin department. Those will be fun.

Oh! And just for funsies, here's a photo of our 300 pound (roundabouts) pumpkin we got from our neighbor! The deer have already tried to get at it, there are teeth scrapings on the front. So we've put some chicken wire over it to keep it safe until our party.

We go to the pumpkin patch this Sunday with our friends Kurt and Tracie! We're super excited, but the weather forecast is looking rotten. :( I'm so mad!!! It's seriously been 75 and sunny for the past few weeks and I was looking forward to beautiful weather for our pumpkin patch adventure. So why does it have to get yucky out just in time to put a damper on our plans? Hopefully the rain will hold out long enough for everyone to have a good time. And if not, guess we're just going to go ahead and do it all in the rain. I'll let you know how that goes, HA!

Happy crafting!!

With love, 
Mama Hauck