Halloween Crafting (Rewind) Week: Ghostly Sponge Prints

Hi friends! I have another one of last years Halloween projects to share with you today and since it seems I have run out of photos from 2011's crafting, this printing craft will finish up the week of "Halloween Rewind."

Like the potato printing craft I shared a earlier, this activity is so super easy, lemon squeezey!

All you need is black construction paper, white paint, sponges and scissors (black marker is optional). You will start by cutting out a few various ghostly shapes from a sponge. My 5 year old drew a few ghost shapes directly onto the sponge with a marker and I cut them out for him. 

Next you can get on with the sponge painting (remember when sponge printing to t-shirts was popular in the early 90's...or maybe that's just what my siblings and I liked to believe as we snatched ever blank top from of dresser drawers just so we could stick a paint-dipped sponge to it). Anyway, dip the sponge in a plate of white paint and then transfer to your construction paper (you may have to dampen the sponge slightly before adding paint if it is too hard or not pliable). If you want to add faces to the ghosts when they dry you can do that too.

I realize these last few projects aren't blow-your-mind creative or original but I think simple crafts are great time fillers for kids before running errands, after a nap, or whatever. Your kids might even be old enough to mostly guide themselves with crafts like these while you catch up on emails nearby. Hopefully you will be inspired to fit a quick project into your child's schedule this week.

Check out some of our other Halloween crafts HERE.

Halloween Crafting (Rewind) Week: Startling Spiders

It's October 3rd! That means project #3 from last year's Halloween projects collection. If I remember correctly I think we actually pulled this project from an old Halloween crating book we had checked out from the library.

To create these startling spiders YOU WILL NEED:

Paper egg cartons

Paint brushes and black paint (like a liquid tempera)

Black pipe cleaners

Scissors to cut pipe cleaners

Googly eyes

Glue for eyes

Yarn for hanging

After cutting apart our egg cartons into individual pieces, we painted them using black paint which you don't have to do if you prefer grey spiders. The paint we used was not a very good quality so when it dried it came out looking grey anyway. 

After the paint dried we poked four holes on two parallel sides of the carton piece using a thick needle--you could also use the end of a thin paintbrush (adults should preform this step however). If you want to hang your spiders you will also want to poke a hole in the top of the carton at this point and sting a long piece of yarn through the hole, knotting the yarn on the underside end of the carton. When that's done you can cut regular sized pipe cleaners in half and have the kids insert them into the holes diagonally (pipe cleaner inserted in top left hole should come out bottom right hole, pipe cleaner inserted in middle left hole should come out middle right hole, etc. See picture above for sample). Bend the wire slightly to form spider-like legs.

The last step is to glue on the googly eyes and hang them from the doorways of your home to startle your family members and guests.

Check out some of our other Halloween crafts HERE.

Halloween Crafting (Rewind) Week: Pumpkin Potato-Prints

If you like simple crafting projects with very little set-up and clean-up then this project is for you.

With 4 simple ingredients your kids can create their own jack-o-lantern characters to adorn your walls for a little Halloween spirit. 

You will need:

Potato halves

Orange Paint (we use a liquid tempera paint because it's washable)

Paper to print on

Paint pens or sharpies to give your pumpkins stems and character

I think you can figure out the step-by-step from the pictures alone (in spite of really bad lighting) but I will explain my process because I do have a couple tips.

I started by cutting 3 washed potatoes in half, drying off the exposed potato with a paper towel so the paint could stick and then I set them on a plate filled with orange paint. I also cut a bunch of strips of paper from a large pad of newsprint I had lying around. Next, each child grabbed a potato and began stamping their paper, it takes a few tries to figure out the right about of paint needed for each print.  

Since this project is so easy, my kids jammed through about 6 sheets each, printing about 6 pumpkins on one sheet in a very short amount of time (my kids were 3 and 5 at the time). The paint we used dried pretty quickly at which point the kids began coloring faces on their pumpkins using paint pens (you could use markers, they just have to be dark enough to color over the orange paint). Hang up your prints and throw out the potatoes, that's all there is to it!

Oh yeah, make sure you write the child's name on the paper before printing. All the artwork comes out looking very much the same and it will be hard to remember what paper belongs to what artist (obviously this won't matter to you if you're not working with more than one crafter). Also,  if you think you might want to keep any of the artwork on a long term basis, you should use a nice study paper that can handle thick paint. I used newsprint because I expected I would throw these out shortly after my kids completed the project but some of them turned out so cute I would have framed them to add to our collection of Halloween decor. As you can see above, the newsprint paper wrinkled quite a bit. Other than that, there's not much else to say. Happy Crafting.

Check out some of our other Halloween crafts HERE.

Building a Leprechaun Trap

We get a lot of Leprechauns sneaking around our house about this time every year so it's become tradition to begin Leprechaun trap construction the first week of March. 

Hendrix knew exactly what he wanted his trap to look like. He drew out a sketch for me so I could help him put his plan into action.  

As you can see from the sketch, the Leprechaun climbs the ladder and makes his way toward the pot of fake gold but falls into a hole before ever reaching it, landing on a cushion of feathers in the trap compartment.

We used two boxes for the body of our trap (one of them being a cereal box) which we cut circular holes into before adhering them together. We painted the whole thing green and then decorated it with items from our craft box and shamrock stickers we bought at the craft store.

We made a ladder from craft sticks and added a couple signs that said things opposite of what we wanted the leprechauns to do—reverse psychology works great on leprechauns you know. Lastly we layered a pile of feathers to the bottom of the box so the leprechaun could land on something soft. It took about 3 days to finish our trap working on it about 20 minutes a day, we are very devoted trap makers!

The final product came out working and looking quite similar to the blueprint sketch with one exception; we ended up not needed a third box for stability because our bottom box was large enough to carry the weight of the box on top.

In all our trap making we have never caught a leprechaun but we are hoping this is our lucky year. If not, we know we'll probably at least end up with some chocolate gold coins like years past. In fact, we have already collected a few coins near the tiny green footprints we have found.

   

Is Leprechaun trap making one of your traditions or on your crafting agenda this month? Please, do share.

P.S. Sewfixated wins a bag of pom-poms and googley eyes for answering the question to my question on the Warm Fuzzy post. Please email me your address and I will get it in the mail right away!

Thumb-Body Likes You

Well, last weeks posting didn't exactly go as planned considering there weren't any. Shorty following my commitment to share our valentine-y projects, we all became incredible ill—like stuck-in-the-hospital-for-a-good-part-of-last-week ill. Since we are finally on the mend I thought I would share a few simple activities for you to try out this month that aren't necessarily specific to Valentines Day.

The first thing I wanted to share with you is an activity book that Hendrix received for Christmas; a fingerprint drawing book by Ed Emberly. Did you have any Ed Emberly drawing books when you were little? They've been around for quite some time. These thumb print books are adorable and have gobs of how-to's for creating little characters using your fingerprints and markers or pens.

You can use any washable stamp pad for fingerprint making but we found a great little finger pad and sponge kit at Lakeshore that works quite well. Hendrix has been creating thumb and fingerprint creatures on a weekly basis since Christmas.

If you don't already have this book, I highly recommend it for your little ones. (We have an Ed Emberly drawing book too that is equally adored).  

Because this activity has become a household favorite as of late we decided to incorporate this craft in Drix's Valentines by making thumb print hearts with the slogan: "Thumb-body likes you."

Hendrix wanted to give out home made heart crayons again this year so we wrapped up a small bundles of crayons in tissue paper and then attached two tags with bakers twine.

One tag said Happy Valentines Day and the other tag had Hendrix's thumb (or finger) stamped message. These Valentines were simple enough for Hendrix to help me through the entire process and it was cute that each tag came out a little different.

Noodle Ice Cream

The kids' Grammy was in town recently and like most of her visits, this meant the craft bin would be restocked with some type of to-do project. I always know when a crafty activity is about to take place when my mom begins to pull random objects out of her bag like Mary Poppins. The project for this weekend was pasta coloring.

I’m pretty sure the last time I colored food was over two years ago so we were in major need of a pasta rainbow growing on our counter top.

[Few things are as nice to look at as a beaming pasta rainbow]

A couple weeks after the visit from Grammy we pulled out the multi-colored pasta and enjoyed a make with the neighborhood children. To stay true to the season, we made “noodle ice cream.” To do this we needed white round cardstock circles to mimic scoops of ice cream (I used a 2 inch circle paper punch), brown triangle shapes to mimic ice cream cones (cut with scissors from craft paper), white school glue, cardstock folded into cards to glue our creations to and of course the colored noodles to symbolize various flavors of ice cream.

The older kids had fun inventing their own new ice cream flavors and some of the little ones had fun digging their little mitts into the noodles while mixing colors.

Yum! The final creations looked good enough to eat; we didn’t however, the combination of paper, glue and rubbing alcohol was sweet on the eyes but probably not so much on the tummy.

To color your own pasta or rice you will need:

Uncooked pasta or rice

Rubbing alcohol

Food coloring

Zip lock bags and

Paper towels or old rags

Fill zip lock bags with rubbing alcohol and food coloring, one bag per color of course. (The amount of rubbing alcohol you add will depend on how much pasta/rice you are coloring. I like the liquid to just cover the solid, the solid will soak up much of the alcohol while it’s “marinating” if you use this technique.)

After giving the filled bag a good shaking you may decide to add more coloring if you want a more saturated look (especially with the purple if you are coloring yellow pasta). After shaking the noodles around for a bit, let them soak in the liquid while moving on to your next color. When your pasta is reaching the desired color, lay the pasta flat on your rags or paper towels to dry.

Drying time typically takes a few hours. Once the (now inedible) food is completely dry you can begin a colorful pasta collage or bag it up for the next rainy day.

Wooden Worry Dolls

One night when Hendrix was having bedtime woes I told him we’d have to get him a set of worry dolls, (those miniature hand assembled dolls that have a knack for vanishing worries while tucked under your pillow as you doze off to dreamland). It was the first he had ever heard of such a tale. He was beyond astonished at this fact and requested he become the owner of a pack of these dolls immediately.

Later I pulled out my own pouch of childhood worry dolls and I remembered how teeny-tiny they were, each doll no larger than a plump raisin. I became worried a certain 2 year old hand might think of his 4 year old brother's worry dolls as a snack should he receive a set. So instead we decided to fashion a non-choking hazard alternative; we made our worry dolls from wooden pegs and acrylic paint.

I purchased two sizes of pegs at the craft store to suggest age variation among the dolls. Hendrix and I each painted a family of 5 (or two adults and three kids) and little Avi (the 2 year old) painted three child-sized pegs. We drew faces on the peg people with sharpie markers.

Although Hendrix occasionally buries the dolls under his pillow at night after expressing a worry or two, both my kids especially LOVE playing with them during the day. To be honest, this neighborhood of peg people is probably their new favorite toy, at least for the time being.

Any craft that can actually provides a use when it’s completed qualifies for gold stars in my opinion. I highly recommend this project. If you paint these dolls with the intent of using them as toys I would recommend adding a coat of spray varnish after the paint dries (either glossy or matte), just to keep them in better shape. Oh and just as a P.S., I am in no way claiming these dolls all 100% choke proof. In fact, probably only the larger sized pegs would pass the choke tube test. Still, the size does very much decease the opportunity to mistake the toy for, say, a tasty looking M&M.

Leprechaun Sightings: Cobbler Foot Print How-To

Does everyone have their leprechaun traps set for St. Patrick’s Day? We are a little behind on trap setting this year because we have been sick, sick, sick but we know those sneaky little cobblers have been lurking about because we have seen tiny green footprints everywhere and our milk keeps going green!

If you are celebrating the green holiday with the kiddies this year and you have yet to see any evidence of leprechauns on the prowl, you could always make-believe!

To start your own leprechaun sighting game, you will need:

• a plastic or metal lid from an old bottle or jar (I used lids from a baby food jar)
• sticky back craft foam or non sticky back craft foam with glue
• scissors
• a green washable marker or ink pad

From the craft foam you will cut out tiny shoe-shaped foot prints and then attach them to the top of the lid. Need I go on?…A stamping you will go. Don’t forget to use WASHABLE ink unless you want to tattoo all your furniture and appliances with the spirit of Saint Pat.

This activity has been loads of fun for my kids. Whenever they spot these mini shoeprints they begin to search for the mischief those little sneaks have left behind. They especially like when they find a chocolate gold coin or two that the leprechauns have dropped by mistake.

(I originally posted this project here)

Sketching with Dr. Seuss : Hardback Sketchbook Tutorial

As a birthday tribute to Dr. Seuss (and because we had some Dr. Seuss book covers lying around from a different project) we decided to make some Dr. Seuss Sketch books. I have created a quick tutorial for you to make these at home.

You will need:
An old hardback book (check out your local thrift store)
Paper
3 hole punch or hand held punch
utility knife and ruler or scissors
Paper cutter (or one of the cutting tools above)
Drill and a 7/32 bit
Scrap block of wood or thick stack of scrap paper
Yarn/twine or metal book rings (they come in various sizes)
Large eyed needle (optional)

STEP 1: First you will need to remove the pages from the hardback book you have selected and cut out the spine. If the original pages are sewn into the book you can snip the twine found at the center page using a sharp pair of scissors or your utility blade and remove all the pages at once. If the pages are glued into the spine, you can cut them out right along with the spine of the book using your ruler and utility knife. Set book pages aside for another project.

STEP 2: Gather the paper you have chosen for the guts of the book and cut down to about 1/4 inch shorter, (vertically and horizontally) than the book over itself. This will give you a nice border when your stack of paper is centered on the inside of the covers. (Our book covers were about 6 ½” x 9 ¼” so we cut our paper to 6 ¼” x 9”). Next you will want to punch holes in the long edge using a 3 hole paper puncher or a hand held punch.

STEP 3: Line up and center one of the papers you just punched near the edge of the book cover. With a pen mark where the book shows though the holes this will be your drill markings. Place the cover on top of a piece of scrap wood and drill through the marking you just made. Repeat this step for all holes and the back cover. If you don’t want to bother with a drill or if you want to get really fancy, you could take the covers to a copy center like Fed Ex Office and they can drill these for you. If you choose this alternative, have them drill your pre-cut paper while you’re at it.

STEP 4: Now for binding. The easy way of doing this is to use metal book rings which come in many sizes. They pull open and squeeze close which makes it easy to remove and add pages to your sketch book. (The image above is sketchbook a friend of mine made for me and it depicts this method).

If you don’t want to have to buy these rings you can always use twine or yarn to tie your book together which is what we did for ours. We did this by inserted the yarn through both ends of facing holes. Then we crossed our yarn strands and stuck it through the hole opposite of the hole it was coming through (one end at a time). We stuck the yarn back through its original hole, double knotted it and snipped off the excess. If you choose to go this route when binding your own books, just make sure the book is able to lay flat with the spine lightly touching when you are knotting the thread, otherwise you could bind too tightly causing the paper to get stuck or tear as you turn the pages.

STEP 5: Get sketching!

I hope you have fun trying this simple project at home. Also, if the original paper you have removed from your book is still in good shape you may want to frame some of your favorite illustrations for instant home decor. Otherwise you could use the scraps to make envelopes, gift tags, postcards…the list goes on and on. What ideas are you brewing up?