Tag Archives: kid craft

Perfectly Pumpkin Contest

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Have I mentioned our pumpkin patch recently?  No?  Well let me give you the update.  We have 4!!!  Two gigantic pumpkins (ok gigantic as in the size of a small child) and two small cute ones.  Only one is orange and the others better get with it quickly otherwise we’ll be making green monster pumpkins this year :) .  I have to admit that given the amount of time and space (no joke the “patch” has taken over our backyard) I had high hopes for a plethora of pumpkins but I’ll take what I can get, and hey there are 4 of us and 4 pumpkins.  Perfection!  Given that we planted seeds in June we’ve had pumpkins on the mind for the past 4 months (!!!).  So what better way to celebrate Halloween and the culmination of our pumpkin growing efforts than with the Perfectly Pumpkin Contest?

We’ve already done quite a few pumpkin activities (some to be posted, so check the linky or check back here!) from glitter decorated pumpkins to making salt dough pumpkins, and perhaps my favorite making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!  See?  A little bit of everything. Pumpkins. Everywhere.



Salty Halloween Fun!

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I’ve begun to notice (and secretly love) that our “craft” closet is growing exponentially to include all sorts of food pantry items, like baking soda and vinegar for our science experiments, flour for cloud dough,  I should just go ahead and buy food dye in bulk considering how much we use it, and salt (to name a few).  You can do so many fun things with salt (who knew?), including making your own playdough, and today we used it for two Halloween themed crafts.

First, I found adorable salt dough ghosts on Familyfun and knew instantly that we had to try to make them.  ”M” loved the entire process, especially being in charge of pushing the buttons on the microwave (I figured this was a little number recognition bonus).  I loved watching her think of all the various expressions that her little ghosts would have (I think she was equally excited by the fact that I gave her an adult marker).

To make the salt dough ghosts mix:

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup salt
  • 1/2 cup water
Then form in to little ghosts and microwave a few at a time at 20-30 second intervals for ~ 2 minutes total.  Once cooled dry on faces with black fine point Sharpie (although any marker will do).

Also at Familyfun (same link as the salt ghosts) was this frightfully cute brown bag tree.  To make the tree start with a rectangle of brown paper.  You can either cut a large paper grocery bag into one long strip or we happened to have some wrapping paper from when we moved.  Then I used a plastic children’s glass to initially mold the trunk by placing it in the middle of the flattened brown paper and gathering it up and giving it a few twists around the cup.  Once the bag trunk was sort of shaped I took the glass out and put in flower arrangement stones to weigh down the tree.  Then you just twist back up the trunk and keep going.  After a few twists cut a few long strips into the bag for the branches and start twisting them individually.  After a few more twists make more cuts for the smaller branches or twigs and twist again.  Keep going until you run out of bag and have the perfect spooky twisty tree!

Our second salty craft was a whole new approach to painting.  We brushed watercolors on salt…stuck on glue.  First make shapes with glue on paper, I would highly recommend placing the paper in a baking pan, now sprinkle the glue liberally with salt. If done in a pan or large container you can gently shake off the excess salt and use it for the next painting without a huge mess (in theory).  Then dip a paint brush (or small dropper) in water color paint, touch the salt, and watch the color spread along your picture!

We made pumpkins…

And spider webs!

What fun spooky crafts have you been making recently?  Let me know, I love to hear from you!

Hands, Fingers, and Toes! Footprint Ghosts, Handprint Bats, and Fingerprint Spiders: The Halloween Crafts Have Begun!

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I definitely have a love of hand and footprint art.  I guess it’s because the kids grow so quickly.  Each and every one of their little crafts with their prints on it is an instant keepsake to me.  Not to mention the kids LOVE painting themselves so why not go with it?  The Halloween crafts have begun and the decorations are starting to go up (it’s ok because it’s October, granted it’s October 3rd, but October nonetheless)!  Today I wanted to share our collection of hand, finger, and foot print Halloween art.

Footprint ghosts are the friendliest ghosts you’ll ever run in to!  Just step in to white paint and then on to black paper and add googly eyes!

We actually explored two different ways to make handprint bats.  The first was for me to cut out a bat shape and then put handprints in it…..

The second is to make a bat shape with your hands.

Last are our fingerprint spiders.  Again we went with two different approaches on this one.  The first was to simply make some fingerprints with black paint, wait for them to dry, and then add legs, a spider string, and who could resist the googly eyes?

The second, largely spurred on by the use of glitter glue in the first attempt was to make a web first with glitter glue and then add spiders.

And, well, we’ve already gotten our hands dirty.  Might as well make a really, really big spider!

Aren’t they great?  Have I missed any other Halloween print ideas?  Be sure to let me know (I love comments!).

Fall Leaf Tree

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The tree in our front yard is breathtaking in the Fall.  Seriously.  People actually take the long way home just to stop by and see it and on more than one occasion I’ve walked outside and seen people with cameras in our front yard (weird).  Granted our tree is one of the last to lose its leaves but the tree in front of “M’s” school is already starting to shed its leaves and they are beautiful.  Since it always takes a few minutes for “M” to unwind after school and get in the car and “J” is so excited to see “M” again he normally has to run in a few circles before I can get him in the car too I had everyone collect leaves Friday after school and today we made our own Fall tree with the leaves.

I cut out the trunk using brown construction paper and placed it on a large square of contact paper which I had placed (sticky side up) on the table.  The kids then added all of our leaf collection and we sealed our tree with another piece of contact paper.  Believe it or not “M” then cut all around the tree to trim off the excess contact paper.  My 4 year old is an expert cutter!  I love our tree and it serves double duty.  During the day it’s a window decoration and during meals “M” uses it as her placemat.  I didn’t preserve the leaves in any way so I don’t think it will last long but for now it’s a nice Fall decoration.  If we were to make it again I would probably try to dry out the leaves and/or I’ve heard rumor that you can preserve leaves with Mod Podge…hmmm….

Kids Crafts: Handprint Fall Trees and Fingerprint Apple Trees

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This past weekend was the first of the Fall weather.  There was a nice cool breeze, it was sunny and warm but not hot.  In a word.  Glorious.  So to celebrate the coming of Fall, the dawn of apple season, and the highly anticipated changing of the leaves we decided to make our own trees.  In fact we were so in to painting today that we managed to do not one, but two, fall tree crafts.

The first was to trace the kids hands and a little bit of their arm on to brown construction paper and cut it out to make a tree trunk and branches.  Then, on to a green sheet of paper that I cut to look somewhat tree-like (I don’t cut well under pressure), the kids made fingerprint apples with red paint.

As it turns out it doesn’t take a leap to go from red fingerprints to red hands.  At least not in this house.  So I embraced the painting of the hands and went with a different kind of handprint tree.  Using red, yellow, and orange paint I let the kids go wild painting their hands (stopping short of painting their entire body) and we used their handprints to make beautiful Fall foliage.

What kind of Fall crafts and activities do you do with your kids?  We are planning on going apple picking this coming weekend.  I hope, hope, hope that the weather is as nice as it was last weekend (please!).

Decorating our very first pumpkin for the season

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We were visiting friends the other day and they were gracious enough to just go out and pluck a few mini pumpkins from their backyard because “M” had commented how great their garden was.  It was our first of the season and we couldn’t wait to do something fun with them.  We decided on glitter, because glitter makes everything special.

(Granted the colors she chose did have me humming “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” unknowingly.)

Personalized handprint cement garden stone

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Well just go ahead and call me Sandra Lee because for this homemade garden stone I’m all about being semi-homemade.  I read about making my own cement mix, then I read about the troubles others had making their own cement mix, and then I saw this kit just calling my name.  So I did it.  I bought the kit.

We’ve actually made several of these this summer (what grandparent doesn’t like a handprint craft?).  And as we are now amateur gardeners ourselves (I am going to get a pumpkin to grow if it kills me) we definitely needed a little decoration for our garden.  Just ask my 4 year old, the bedazzler.

If you buy the kit it couldn’t be simpler.  Just mix the cement mix with water and pour into the provided mold (actually you want to check the box to make sure there is a mold provided before buying, some don’t come with them.)  The mix is very dusty so you might need to go train bandit style:

Once in the mold let it dry for maybe 20-30 minutes until is becomes somewhat solid and then you can add hand or foot prints, stones, or other embellishments (our kit came with the stars and moons).  If it is still too wet to hold the handprint just jiggle the tray to get things to resettle and wait a little longer.  You can speed up the drying process by wicking of the extra water on the surface with paper towel (just place on top to sop up the water and then carefully take off).

Painting with trucks, who needs paintbrushes?

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This activity really stemmed from a happy coincidence.  Something that might have normally made me cringe (no! don’t put your truck in the paint!!!) was just the right idea for this afternoons craft.

I definitely have a couple of budding artists on my hands (one of their many, many talents).  Both kids enjoy painting, “M” because she likes to create masterpieces and “J” because he likes to create messes.  But while “M” was completely into painting this afternoon “J” was having none of it.  Not that he didn’t want to be included mind you, he wanted to be in the thick of things (as determined by his sitting in the middle of the paper while “M” tried to paint around him) but apparently he was more in a truck mood.  Sooo new plan.  Let’s paint with trucks!  We tried all different size wheels and vehicles with interesting tread marks in order to check out all the different patterns that are made.  It was a hit with both kids and look how cool their collaborative effort turned out!

Outdoor fun: going on a nature “hike” with my two little explorers

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We have a fantastic nature center near our home (yay free activities!) that’s always a huge hit with the kids.  We never get tired of looking at the turtles and snakes that they have there (we’ve now named them all), we quite frequently enjoy having picnics outside around the campfire pit, and most recently we’ve begun taking nature walks around the center.  And by around I mean there is literally a path that goes in a small circle around the center and, for now, that works for us.  Here we go on the prowl for butterflies.

Once inside the kids love checking out the turtles every time we visit.  ”M” goes from tank to tank telling me all about them by name (mind you not their scientific name, I mean names like “Bob and Mabel”) and about their families and basically their whole life story.  ”J” runs from tank to tank waving and yelling “HI!” at them convinced they are waving back when they swim towards (or away) from him.

The center has a please-touch table full of various seeds that animals eat as well as animal pelts.  Speaking of, I have a cousin that wore a coonskin cap for at least a year when we were kids.  Rarely did you see him without it.  Well apparently I have my own little Davey Crocket on my hands and, sorry David, THIS is what I call a coonskin cap!

I think “J” just likes the feel of the animal fur and coincidentally hats.  ”M” meanwhile goes around pretending to be the various animals.

As a former scientist I love that my daughter finds the microscope so fascinating.  Granted she’s usually squinting with both eyes (or has them both closed) but just one look at her and I am happily reminded of all the years I’ve spent looking through those lenses starting decades ago with a microscope just like this one (this is normally when my daughter catches me staring at her with starry proud eyes and she asks what I am doing).

One thing I learned during this trip was about horseshoe crabs (it’s my goal when visiting museums, or even nature centers, is to learn one thing which really, with two kids going in opposite directions at all times, is a noble goal.).  I was born and raised on the East Coast.  I’ve known what a horseshoe crab is since I was 2.  And yet somehow I completely forgot that their mouth is located in the middle of their body.  Crazy huh?

We all love being outdoors and are anxiously awaiting the Fall for three main reasons 1) My children are essentially mosquito bait and best I can tell we apparently live in a swamp. 2) My son melts at the mere mention of the sun.  3) The leaves will soon be falling which to “M” means that soon she can make a leaf pile.  Then again I am once again reminded that you can make leaf rubbings any time of year!

Post indoor exploration, we had a quick picnic lunch outside (wherein “J” managed to eat both his lunch and mine…..mental note: pack more food from now on) and then we went on another nature walk/butterfly hunt.  And by hunt I mean that the kids constantly were swiping the net unless there was a butterfly then we would all freeze and watch it until it flew away (we’re less “hunters” and more admirers around here).  ”M” is also an amateur bird watcher:

And “J” is her shadow.  Aiming a little low there bud.

Of course the binoculars became a pretty hot ticket item while we were there.  And while the sharing was basically successful I decided we could use a second pair when we got home.  So we took two toilet paper rolls and taped them together, punched holes on the side and added some string.  Believe it or not these were even more popular than the originals.  Which brings me to my latest “game”.  Have you ever noticed that kids are much more enthusiastic about doing things when requests are made with exciting buzz words including, but not limited to: race, adventure, secret (especially secret missions), and explorers.  Well now since we have two sets of binoculars we can see which explorer can spot the toy on the floor first and pick it up the fastest!!!!  Yup, I’ll do anything to get them to clean up their toys.

**Keep in mind that a lot of these activities can be done on your own, without the benefit of a nature center, in your own backyard or local park.  Everyone loves a good outside adventure!

Rainbow Fish

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After reading (and rereading) The Rainbow Fish while on vacation at the beach last week “M” decided she wanted to make a rainbow fish of her own.  Wouldn’t you know we have dozens (hundreds?) of discs in our cabinet that we keep all the stuff in that we would have in an actual ”office” clearly bought in bulk back when discs were hip.  Yes, hip.

The best part is that the disc shimmers which appeals to just about every 4 year old girl I know.  Attach some construction paper fins, a googly eye, and of course some rainbow gems and you’ve got yourself a gen-u-ine rainbow fish.  Read the book (by Marcus Pfister), make a craft!