My kids really enjoyed making these last year, and they were sooo easy!  Some of you might have already seen this craft last Halloween, but it’s one of my favorites, so I couldn’t resist re-publishing it!

This craft is a cute, but easy way to make a Halloween necklace out of fun foam and pony beads. I saw the original craft in a catalog and then we created our own version.

You could also easily adapt this one for other Halloween type figures — Like a black cat would be cute.

You’ll Need:

• White Fun Foam
• 3 Inches Orange Ribbon
• Pony Beads
• Wooden Beads to Spell BOO
• 24 Inches of White Cord or Yarn
• Glue
• Scissors
• Black Permanent Marker and Pencil

What To Do:

1. Print out the ghost template below. Cut it out and trace it onto white fun foam with a pencil.

2. Cut out your ghost. Use the point of your scissors or a small hole punch to make the wholes in the center of the hands as the template shows.

3. Use a permanent black marker to draw a face on your ghost. Tie a small bow with the orange ribbon and glue it onto the ghost.

4. String the beads onto the cord as shown in the picture. You can use a different bead pattern if you choose.

NOTE: Put a piece of tape around the end of the chord or yarn to make it easier to string the beads.

5. Thread the ends of the cord through the hands of the ghost. Tie the two ends of the cord into a knot to make a necklace.

Don’t forget to get your copy of

Little Kid Halloween Crafts!

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Ghostly Necklace

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1. Halloween Crafts Around The Web

There are so many great craft ideas and crafting websites online, especially for Halloween crafts, that I thought I’d post some of the best craft links here.  The only problem is that I found too many to put in one post… so I may have to do this in two parts!

One other quick note: My own Halloween craft book, Little Kid Halloween Crafts, will only be available until October 31st, so if you’re planning to get your copy, don’t wait too long!

Enjoy these great Halloween Crafts from around the web!

Halloween Wrapper:  A fun way to had out treats for a party, scouts, or in the classroom.  If you aren’t allowed to use toilet paper tubes in your area, use paper towels and cut them down.  My kids thought these were great!

Halloween Shrunken Apple Heads – It’s not too late to make these scary little shrunken heads out of apples. Simply peel it, cut out a face, and put it in the oven to dry. You can even add hair, eyeballs, etc. to make them really scary and hang them in a tree for the trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. This is a big kid craft.

Footprint Ghost – I’m sure you’ve seen these many times before, but I still think they’re cute and kids love making them!

Halloween Painted Rocks – There are all kinds of spooky Halloween crafts you can make out of rocks.  This page gives you some ideas and you can use them with children of all ages.

Pasta Skeletons – If you can actually find dried pasta in lots of different shapes, then this is a fun craft for just about any age group.

Windsock Ghosts - We made a bunch of these one year and hung them all around the porch.  We actually stapled everything to make it go faster, instead of hot gluing and it worked like a charm.  The kids absolutely went nuts over it!

More great Halloween crafts coming soon, so if you know of a project that I should include, let me know!

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Halloween Crafts Around The Web

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Pumpkins have always been a big deal at our house, even before we had kids. My husband and I used to have contests every year to see who could carve the best pumpkin. I always won. (My husband might have a different opinion about that.) Then one year I took the kids to a local farm where they sold really cute painted pumpkins for $30-$50 per pumpkin. Being a pretty crafty person, I decided that I wanted to try pumpkin painting on my own.

Luckily I found a how to book that gave me all the pointers I needed and they we were off to the races. Now we paint our pumpkins every year instead of carving them.

Sound strange? Well let me give you my top 7 reasons to paint pumpkins and you might just become a pumpkin painter too.

1. Painting is a lot less work than carving.

With five of us in our family and each one of us needing our own special pumpkin, that is five pumpkins to cut open, clean, and carve each year. The kids are too little to handle knives themselves, so that means my husband and I do most of the work while the kids watch. That makes for a very long pumpkin carving event and some very tired hands.

2. Kids can paint pumpkins all by themselves with very little help.

Even very young children can pick up a paint brush and paint their own pumpkins. That means that they aren’t idly standing by watching while mom or dad does the carving. They’re actively participating, designing, and enjoying their own pumpkin creation.

3. No sharp utensils.

Even with some of the safer pumpkin carving tools on the market today, pumpkin carving can still be dangerous for children. Pumpkin painting only involves the use of paint and paint brushes – no sharp objects needed.

4. Painted pumpkins last longer.

After you carve a pumpkin, you might get to enjoy it for a couple of days before it starts to rot, slump, and fall apart. Painted pumpkins, on the other hand, can last a really long time. If there are cool temperatures without any frost at night, we’ve had pumpkins last into the late Fall and early Winter.

5. Painted pumpkins don’t need a candles.

When you carve a pumpkin, you really need to put a candle or battery operated light into it and see it at night to get the full effect of carving it. Looking at carved pumpkins in the daytime just isn’t very impressive. And by the way, who in their right mind wants to stick their hand inside a pumpkin to light it up after it’s been sitting for a day or two? Yuk!

Painted pumpkins don’t need an internal light. They can be seen from the light of your other decorations, and they look great in the daytime!

6. Painted pumpkins are much more versatile.

It’s much easier to make a painted pumpkin look like anything you want, while carving pumpkins limits most of us. It can take hours to carve an intricate design into a pumpkin to make it look the way you want. Painting is much quicker and easier.

7. Painted pumpkins are easier to embellish.

We’ve made painted pumpkins for Thanksgiving that were decorated with glitter, three little pig pumpkins for the beginning of the harvest season with wooden spool legs and pink pipe cleaner tails, and Halloween pumpkins with pine boughs sticking out for hair. Painted pumpkins are super easy to embellish with just about anything you can think of to make them fit your design.

In the end, painting pumpkins just proves to be a much better fit for our family. Oh, we still carve the occasional pumpkin, but the majority of our pumpkin activities revolves around painting pumpkins.

If you’d like to learn more about how to paint really fabulous pumpkins that will literally stop traffic, then just click the link below:

Click here for aweseome pumpkin painting ideas ==>>>

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Top 7 Reasons To Paint Pumpkins

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This scrunchie autumn leaf craft project can be a lot of fun for younger children, but you can also use it as a jumping off point for older kids.  This basic idea would make a great background for a bulletin board, pretty wrapping paper, or any number of other fun projects for children of all ages.

What You’ll Need:

• Fall colored tempura paint (red, orange, brown, green, or yellow)
• A bath scrunchie
• A paper plate
• Thin cardboard or old file folder
• White construction paper

What to Do:

1. Print out the outline of an oak leaf below.  Trace it onto a piece of thin cardboard or an old file folder.

2. Cut out the leaf.  The idea is to create a stencil of the leaf.

3. Lay your stencil onto a piece of white construction paper.  Put a squirt of at least three different colors of paint on your paper plate.

4. Dip the scrunchie into all three colors of paint and then stamp it onto your paper over the stencil. When you’re done, carefully lift the stencil off the paper to reveal the Autumn leaf.

This is a “scrunchie.”
You’ll find them where bath products are sold.

The Leaf Template

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Scrunchie Autumn Leaf Craft Project

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I can’t believe that it’s already time to start looking at Fall Crafts!  Here are some quick and simple fall jewelry crafts that younger kids can make .  The idea here is to take them on a little nature walk in the woods or at a park and let them collect supplies to use in the crafts first.  Then you can do the craft on the spot or bring back your collection and do the craft inside.

Enjoy!

Fall Nature Bracelets

Use wide tape (like packing tape) and wrap it loosely around the child’s wrist with the sticky side out.   As the child collects things like leaves, bark, etc. they stick it to the tape to make a bracelet.  We’ve also done this by making a belt instead of a bracelet and it gave the kids a lot more room to stick their collections on.  This one’s a big hit with the younger set and can be done as you walk.

Fall Nature Necklace

Take a long piece of yarn or string with you on a nature walk.   As you go along collecting Autumn objects, tie them onto the string.  When you’re done, tie the two ends together to create a necklace.

NOTE: You may want to avoid larger sticks or other sharp objects that could poke the child in the eye as they are wearing their necklace.

Braided Grasses

Collect long strands of dried grasses, straw, thin twigs, etc. and braid them into a necklace or bracelet.  Very young kids will have a tough time with this one, but older kids will love it.

To do the braiding, divide the strands into three groups and put them side by side. Put a rubber band around the top of the three to hold them together. Take the right section of grass over the middle section, now take the left section over the middle one. Alternate the right and left sections until you reach the end of the grass.

You can add more grasses to each section as you need them to make the necklace or bracelet as long as you want. When you finish the braid, put a rubber band on the end to hold it and then tie the two end of the braid together to make your jewelry. (You may or may not be able to take the rubber bands off when you’re done tying it off.)

Make A Pendant

Collect some great colored leaves and arrange them between two sheets of contact paper.   Once the leaves are stuck down and the contact paper is stuck together, you can cut it into any shape you want, punch a hole in it and turn it into a necklace.

Do you have any other great fall jewelry craft ideas you’d like to share?

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Simple Fall Jewelry Crafts

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When it’s back to school time, you know that apple season is here, so I thought it would be fun to post some crafts for apple season.   Enjoy!

Apple Crafts For Little Kid Crafts

Some of these crafts would work for older kids too, but I separated them here because these crafts can be done with little or no help with little kids.

Apple Stamping

Cut an apple in half.  Dip the cut side of the apple into paint and dab it on a paper towel to wipe off the excess paint if necessary, and then stamp it onto paper.  You can experiment cutting the apple different ways for different ways, especially through the middle to make a star print.   When the paper dries, you can use markers to outline the apples as a variation to the project. You can also use larger sheets of paper and use it for wrapping paper when the paint dries.

Here’s a little stamping tip: Fold a paper towel into quarters and lay it down in the middle of a styrofoam plate. Pour paint into the center of the paper towel. When the paper towel soaks up the paint it will act like a stamp pad. It wastes a little paint, but it’s also a little less messy.

Fingerprint Apple Trees

Use brown paint or a brown marker to make a tree trunk long-ways on a piece of paper. Dip your index finger in green paint and stamp it several times at the top of the trunk to make the tree. You’ll have to re-dip your finger several times. Dip your pinkie in red paint and stamp it on your tree to make the apples.

Hand Print Apples

Paint the palm of the child’s hand with red tempura paint and stamp it on construction paper.  Wipe hands and paint the index finger with brown paint.  Stamp the finger to make the apple stem.  Wipe hands again and paint the tips of two fingers with green paint.  Stamp the green paint on the base of the stem to make the leaf.  Let everything dry.

Once the paint is dry, you can draw a face on the apple, glue on wiggle eyes, or leave it just the way it is.

Apple Collage

Tear up a bunch of pieces of red paper and glue them onto the back side of a paper plate.  Glue on a stem and a couple of leaves to complete the project.   This is a great way to use up all those scraps.

More Challenging Apple Crafts

Apple Beaded Safety Pin – If your kids are into making beaded safety pin jewelry, then this is a really simple design for making an apple.

Easy Dried Apple Crafts – This page gives you complete instructions for how to properly dry apples, then it outlines some really fun and pretty apple crafts that you can make with the dried apples. This is something my oldest and I plan to try this fall.

Apple Head Dolls – These are much easier to make than you might think…  This would be a great project for scouts or a classroom where you could stretch it out a couple of sessions over a few of days.

Terra Cotta Apple – This project would definitely be for kids who are a bit older, but it’s very cute. Basically, you paint a terra cotta pot and saucer red, put the saucer on top of the pot to make an ‘apple,’ and then add some leaves.

Apple Magnet – This is a creative recycling craft for making an apple shaped magnet complete with a worm!  I’d stay away from the finger polish idea, however, and just use the felt or fun foam. With a little supervision, you could also do this one with younger kids.

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Crafts For Apple Season

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This paper bag wormy apple craft is a really fun and easy craft that ties in nicely with any autumn theme, but the best part about it is that it is extremely inexpensive to make.  In fact, we made these with stuff that we already had around the house.  Even my older kids liked this one!

What You’ll Need

• Lunch size paper bag
• Newspaper
• Red acrylic or poster paint
• Paint Brush
• Four yellow pom-poms (3 smaller and one larger)
• Two small wiggle eyes
• White glue (no glue sticks)
• Black marker

What To Do

1.  Stuff the paper bag with shredded newspaper until it’s about 2/3 full.  Twist the top of the bag shut tightly to make the apple stem.  This is the basic apple shape.

2.  Paint the apple red and let dry completely.  You can choose to paint the stem brown too, if you want, but we didn’t really think it was necessary.

3.  Use the black marker to draw a hole for the worm to come out of on the apple.  It should be a little bigger that your pom-poms.

4.  Glue your pom-poms onto the apple in an “L” shape so that it looks like the worm is coming out of the hole.  Use the biggest pom-pom as the head.

5.  Glue on the wiggle eyes and let all the glue dry completely.

That’s it!  That’s our paper bag wormy apply craft… Enjoy!

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Paper Bag Wormy Apple Craft

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These colorful coffee filter valentines are a fun project and make a great Valentine card.  It’s a great project for younger children because it’s so simple, but I also did this will a girl scout troop and they had a ball making them because they enjoyed the tie dye effect of the coffee filters.

What You’ll Need

• 1 Basket coffee filter
• Watercolor paints
• Paint brush
• Permanent Black Marker
• Scissors
• Decorative edge scissors (optional)
• Glue

What to Do

1. Lay the coffee filter out as flat as possible. Use your paint brush to wet the entire surface. It doesn’t need to be dripping wet, just damp.

2. Paint the wet filter with the watercolors. You can paint something specific or just use random colors the way we did in our example. When you like what you’ve painted, let it dry completely.

3. Fold the painted coffee filter in half and cut out a heart.

4. Glue the coffee filter heart on top of a red piece of construction paper.

5. Cut around the heart to make a red border around the filter. (Use the decorative scissors for this optionally.)

6. Use the permanent black marker to write “Be Mine” in the middle of the heart, then use it to put the stitching detail around the edge of the filter. The stitching is a simple dashed line.
That’s it!  Quick and easy!

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Coffee Filter Valentine

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We made this project for a school Valentine party for children and it was a HUGE hit.  When we finished this project, my son (five at the time) thought we could just take off our old mailbox and replace it with this one… He said our new pink one was prettier than our plain black one and the mailman might bring us more packages if we used this one instead. Oh if only it were that easy.

What You’ll Need:

• 2 Sheets Pink Fun Foam (12 x 18 inch)
• Dark Pink Fun Foam
• Brown Fun Foam
• Self adhesive foam hearts
• Scissors
• Cardboard box (See Step 1)
• Hot Glue Gun
• Exacto Knife (Optional)

What to Do:

1. The first thing you need to do is cut your cardboard box in the shape below. We use one of those large cereal boxes that you get at a warehouse store like Sam’s Club. You can make a smaller mailbox by using a shoebox, or tape pieces of cardboard together to make the shape below in the size you want.

Do not make your cut out any taller than 7 inches or any longer that 11 inches. Anything taller or longer will require you to piece together pieces of foam to cover the box and it won’t look as good.

We used an exacto knife to cut the cardboard. It allows you more control over your cutting and a more exact shape.

2. Choose one end of the cardboard cut out to have the door. Cut the door in that end by creating an arch that matches the curve of the box about an inch from the edge. The cut will look like a horseshoe. Refer to the red line in the image below.

3. Put hot glue on one end of the mailbox and then lay it on one sheet of pink foam. Let cool then cut off the excess foam. Do the same with the other end of the mailbox. Be sure to cover both ends with just one sheet of foam (You need the other sheet for step 4).

Cut on the line for the door. Lightly score the cardboard on the bottom of the door so that it will open easier.

4. Put hot glue on one of the long sides of the box and then lay it on the short side of a whole piece of pink foam. Wrap the foam up over the top of the box and secure with hot glue on the other long side of the box. Cut a small piece of foam and hot glue it to the door to make a handle.

5. Cut a strip of brown foam and wrap one end with a long piece of dark pink foam. This will make the flag. Hot glue the flag to the mailbox as shown in the example.

Don’t make the flag “pole” part too long or the flag too big — the foam isn’t ridged enough to hold it. You can replace the brown foam with a large craft stick to make it more stiff if you want.

6. Decorate the mailbox with the self adhesive foam hearts and the scraps of dark pink foam you have left over.

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Fancy Foam Valentine Box Craft

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This paper plate penguin craft is super simple to make out of stuff you already have, it’s something you can pull together at the spur of the moment… a must when dealing with little ones, and kids can do this one all by themselves!

Plus, I think it’s really cute… even though my picture really doesn’t do it justice.  Enjoy!

What You’ll Need

• Paper Plate
• Black Construction Paper
• Orange and Green Scrap Paper
• Glue
• Scissors
• Pencil

What To Do

1.  Use the pencil to mark a circle on the inside of the plate.  You’ll instruct the kids to keep the center of the place clear so that the penguin will have a white belly.

2.  Tear black construction paper into pieces and glue the pieces around the outside of the circle you’ve drawn on the plate.

3.  Cut a triangle out of orange construction paper for the beak and two green circles to make the eyes.  Glue the eyes and beak onto the plate to complete the penguin.

That’s it… I hope you enjoy it!

Post from: KidCraftsMagazine.com

Paper Plate Penguin Craft

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