Halloween School Craft #2

I did a few more crafts with Natalie's first grade class this year for halloween. Here are the instructions to make two simple and very quick crafts.

Eyeball Necklaces

Package before hand in a baggie:

foam eyeball (skull or whatever else you can find a lot of)

string

jumpring attached to a jewelry pick(if you have older children you can let them attach the jump ring)

glue(optional)

To make:

1.) push jewelry pick into foam shape(in this case eyeball)

2.) optional...glue into place and let dry

3.) place string through the jump ring

4.) place around neck and tie

5.) enjoy sporting around your new halloween necklace

Witch Pencils

Package before hand in a baggie for each child(you don't have to do this but it makes it a lot quicker):

1 pencil

1 piece of felt approx 6 inches long and 3 inchs wide(I used brown and black)

rubber band

piece of string or ribbon

To make:

1.) cut felt piece to look like a fringe. This will be the broom strands.

2.) wrap fringed felt around end of pencil with eraser

3.) secure with rubber band

4.) tie ribbon or string around the rubber band to hide

5.) sharpen and use

I hope you can use these ideas. Happy Halloween

Halloween Treat - Witch Hat Cookies

I made these witch hat cookies every year. One because they are so easy and two because they are so cute. My two favorite things easy and cute without much effort.

You need:

Striped townhouse cookies(or similar)

Hershey Kisses

Icing(I like the squirt bottles but you can use regular icing

1) place striped cookies upside down

2) unwrap hershey kisses

3) squirt a glob of icing on the bottom of a hershey kiss

4) smoosh hershey kiss on top of cookie

5) enjoy your witch hat cookie. Now how easy was that?

halloween 2009 - many faces of Natalie

Natalie has always dressed up in a few different outfits every halloween. We always have a halloween party (outfit 1), we go trick or treating around the neighborhood(outfit 2) , and we always go to Walmart (outfit 3). This year we added two more outfits because of trick or treating times in different "grandma zones" and because school had a dress up as your favorite book character day. Here are the photos of Natalie so far....Last one for tonight is not quite done yet...but it's a doozie(and homemade) so check back soon for pics of it. :)

Halloween Party - Bumble Bee (Daddy was a beekeeper)
Grandma Trick or Treat - Rag Doll
School Favorite Book Character - Fancy Nancy
Walmart - Super Girl (pics coming soon)
Home Trick or Treat - ????

Halloween Dessert Buffet

Here is a pic of my halloween dessert buffet.....check out my other blog shortly for the details of the buffet and my halloween party this year :) http://craftparty.blogspot.com/

Fancy Nancy Costume

My daughter's school doesn't have a "normal" halloween dress up day like we used to when I was in grade school. They have a week of activities like wear a hat day, backwards day, team spirit day, and the final day is dress up as your favorite book character day. So this year Natalie decided that Fancy Nancy would have to be the character she dresses up as. I have to say my eyes lit up because she doesn't usually want to dress very fancy :) So I went to JoAnns and found some great hot pink silky fabric and some light pink with sparkles fabric and went to town on a "fancy" skirt. Then I headed to goodwill to find a shirt I could alter into something fancy. Then it was off to the dollar store to find all the fancy accessories. One last stop put me at Michaels searching for something to fancy up her shirt. I found the pink glitter iron on letters and the rhinestone iron on butterfly...YEAH!!! Her hair took a while in the morning with all the feathers, bobby pins, and crowns but in the end I think she turned out fancy fabulous.

Halloween Napkins

Here is a cute easy way to bring halloween into your mealtimes. Go to the dollar store and buy some skeleton hands (10/$1.00) and a package of black napkins. Get out some of your ribbon you have been hoarding(o.k. maybe I'm the only one that hoards ribbon :) ). Tie them together and put them at each place setting for a creepy touch.

I made 40 of these to use for our halloween party this Saturday. I think they turned out very cute and I did 40 for $5.00 bucks and the only store I had to go to was the Dollar Tree.

Enjoy!

Halloween Trophy - Try # 1

Just wanted to give an update on one of my halloween projects. My first trophy "redo" is just about done. I like it but I'm not crazy about it yet so I will keep tweaking. I found a little doll at a flea market for $.10 so I wrapped her to look like a mummy and put a nail in her foot to place her on top of the trophy I took apart and spray painted black. I still have to make the name plate but for now I just wrote it on the front. I think I'm going to add some cobwebs and spiders too. The next one I'm trying will be a skull head or skeleton. Check back.

Halloween School Craft #1

My dd teacher asked me if I could come up with some halloween crafts the kid's could do on Fridays in October.

The first craft we did last Friday was Felt halloween Chair Covers.

What you will need:

Felt (Orange, Black, and White)

Fabric Glue

Scissors

Design Sheet(optional)

Name Tag(optional)

Here's what you do:

At least a week before:

1.) Measure chairs...add 1 inch to width and add 1 inch to heighth to get size of felt you will need.

2.) Buy felt (I bought 4 1/2 yards and it made 25 chair covers)

3.) Buy "accent felt" I bought 1 1/2 yards each of black and white(I think I could have gotten away with 1 yard for 25 kids)

4.) Draw some simple designs for the chair covers to give children some ideas(if you are dealing with older than 1st grade you can probably skip over this step) I included my designs(please disregard my drawing skills :) )

5.) Buy at least 3 bottles of Fabric Glue

6.) Make sure teacher has scissors for all the children.

7.) Sew Chair Covers(use a 1/4 inch seam allowance to make sure they will fit over chairbacks. (I suggest making one prototype and taking it into school to make sure it fits before sewing all of them.) - If you don't know how to sew or just do not want to take the time you could just fold the felt over the top of the chair and punch holes in each side and thread ribbon through and tie together to hold the cover on the chair.

8.) Cut "accent color" squares of felt for each child.

9.) Make copies of your designs for each child(or you could make one posterboard and place it in the front of the classroom.

9.) Package 1 chair cover, 2 pieces of felt(white and black), and a design sheet in a bag or ziploc for each child so you can pass the items out quickly.

Once your in the classroom:

10.) Explain to each child what they are making. Place your prototype on a chair so they can visualize.

11.) Pass out your bags of supplies and scissors to each child.

12.) When ready to glue have them raise their hand and glue for them. You put the glue on the back of their pieces and let them place them on their chair cover. Make sure the chair cover is facing the right way before gluing down.

13.) Place a sticker or safety pin a sheet of paper with the child's name on the chair cover and place somewhere in the classroom to dry.

14.) Clean Up and Take a Deep Breath you will probably need it :)

I hope you enjoy this idea. Check back next week for our next classroom craft idea.

Halloween - Button Costume - This time with Instructions

I have had several emails asking me for more details on how to make the button costume I made for dd a few years ago so I thought I should elaborate:

Here's what you need to make your own button costume for your little cutie this year:

2 green floral wreaths

fabric of choice

cardboard

yarn

hot glue

safety pins.

Here is how I did it:

1.) Hot glue fabric around the 2 green floral wreaths. You can use whatever size you want. (I took my dd to the store and held them up to her to determine which one "fit" the best)

2.) Cut 2 pieces of cardboard into circles that will fit snugly inside the floral wreaths.

3.) Cut 4 holes into the cardboard circles for the button holes.

4.) Wrap fabric around the cardboard and hot glue in place. Then cut out the fabric out of the button holes.(I cut them in an X shape and hot glued around the hole). Make the cutout the same size as the opening and they should fit snugly into the wreath opening. If your not comfortable with that use some more hot glue.

5.) Place button up against the person that will be wearing the costume to measure how far down you want the button to come down on them.

6.) Make 2 shoulder straps by taking a length of 4 inch black fabric(or whatever color that will match her shirt), fold length of fabric in half and sew straight stitch down the sides(you could use ribbon if you do not want to sew).

6.) Use a safety pin to pin the straps to the back of each wreath. That way it will be easy to take on and off when needed.

7.) Take yarn and thread it through the button holes and your done. (Mine didn't look too pretty on the inside but you couldn't see that part.)

8.) Optional: glue buttons all over everything that is visible...shirt sleeves, pant legs, hair scrunchies, shoes...go wild.

8.) Now go take your cutie trick or treating and count how many times people say Look isn't she/he cute as a button.

If you end up making this costume I would love to see your version. Leave me a comment if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Hope