Halloween means pumpkins, scary costumes, tricks, treats — and lots of opportunities for arts and crafts. With the leaves changing colors and the air getting chillier, it’s the perfect weather to inspire your children’s arts and crafts bug.
Having an afters and crafts afternoon can be the perfect way to spend some quality time with your children. For them personally, arts and crafts let your kids be creative and explore their artistic sides. One of your children may find that he or she is good at painting and would like to take classes or would like to learn more about famous painters and techniques. Letting them explore their artistic sides could help them discover new talents and lifelong interests in the arts.
Spending time together doing arts and crafts also gives you and your children quality time to make memories. Almost all parents will tell you that children really do grow up too fast. They won’t remember every expensive birthday gift you ever give them, but they will remember the jokes you make and the things you tell them. Enjoy this time with them now because it won’t last forever.
Arts and crafts don’t have to take all day, and they don’t have to make a major mess in your home. Actually, you don’t even need to stick to traditional arts and crafts. There are all sorts of fun craft projects to do that will keep your kids entertained all afternoon and away from the screens.
Here are a few of our favorite Halloween arts and crafts projects to do at the crafts table, outside and in the kitchen.
Arts and crafts
While they’re in school, your kids probably look forward to art classes all week, and when there’s a chance to do arts and crafts in their classrooms, they can’t wait to show you what they made. But arts and crafts aren’t just for school. You can carve out a space in your home where your kids can let their creativity lead them.
If you’re concerned about messes, carve out a space in your home that you don’t mind getting a little dirty. It can be on your back patio, in your garage or in your basement. Put a table (an old one or an inexpensive fold-up one) and a few chairs there. You can even put drop cloths under your table and chairs to catch paint drips. To store your crafts, pick up some plastic drawers to hold all your paints, brushes, crayons, markers and scissors. This will make clean-up easy when it’s time to put everything away.
Here are a few fun, easy crafts to do with your kids.
Silly slime
It oozes and it shakes. It’s green and it’s silly. It’s slime! What could be more fun than making your own slime and playing with it? For kids, not much.
Silly slime is easy to make, safe for kids and fun for hours. With a little green food coloring and some googly eyes, you can make your own slime with your kids and give it a little Halloween flare. Here’s how.
You’ll need:
- 5 oz. clear glue
- 1 Tbsp baking soda
- Green (or any color you like) glitter paint
- Googly eyes
- 3 Tbsp saline solution
If you don’t have these ingredients, you should be able to pick them up at your local arts and crafts store. To make the slime, here are the steps:
- Combine the glue and baking soda in a bowl.
- Add the glitter paint in small amounts and mix. Keep adding paint until the slime becomes your desired color.
- Stir the ingredients together until everything is combined and then add the three tablespoons of saline solution, one at a time.
- Now take the slime and start rolling it in your hands. You want to get the slime to the point where it is no longer sticky, which can take five or more minutes. If the stickiness isn’t going away, add a little more saline solution.
- Toss in the googly eyes and enjoy!
Your kids will love pulling apart the slime and putting it back together, and the googly eyes will keep them giggling.
Spidey senses
While spiders can be scary for some, not all spiders need to be spine-tingling — especially these funky and fashion-forward arachnids. These spider crafts can be part of a larger decor project or just a fun companion to put on the windowsills.
Even if your kids have a slight arachnophobia, these spiders can be as fun and silly as your kids like — or as spooky and scary. With just a few easy-to-find items, these spiders can take up a whole day of painting and decorating fun.
To make these spiders, you will need:
- 1 1/2 -inch wooded knob with hole (body)
- ¾-inch wooden knob with hole (head)
- Black pipe cleaners (five per spider)
- Paint
- Beads
- Paintbrush
- Scissors
- Glue
- Black marker
Your spiders can look as coordinated — or as goofy — as your kids like. Give them options with lots of bright paint colors and let them choose different types of beads at the craft store. So long as the beads will fit over the pipe cleaners (which will be the legs), your kids can choose any beads that they like. If it helps, try working with your kids at the craft store to pick out a paint color for the spider body and head and matching beads for the legs.
Now here’s how to put the spiders together.
- Paint the wooden knobs. They don’t have to be black. Try bright green or pink for a little variety. Let them dry completely.
- Take four pipe cleaners and thread eight beads onto each leg, leaving a wider gap in the middle. This will be the part that wraps around the body. You can always readjust the legs later, so don’t worry about getting them perfect right now.
- Glue the fifth pipe cleaner into the hole of the spider’s head knob.
- Twist the four leg pipe cleaners around the fifth pipe cleaner
- Once the legs are secure, glue the body knob onto the back of the fifth pipe cleaner. After the glue dries, spread out the legs.
- Let your kids get creative by drawing a face on their spider. It can be happy, scary or silly. They can also decorate the spider’s back if they like.
You can make as many spiders as you like. While you’re at the craft store, pick up some fake cobwebs or a fake web and give your spiders a home.
Crafty decor
Crafts don’t have to live on a shelf or on the refrigerator. Your kids can create their own fall decor for their rooms or even other rooms around your home. It saves you money in buying more fall decor for your home, and your kids will have fun decorating their own rooms.
Spooky garland
Wouldn’t your mantle look absolutely spooky with pumpkins or ghosts hanging across it? Your kids can make their own garland for the living room or even their bedrooms. Garland is easy to make in an afternoon, and your kids can be as creative as you like, adding glitter, drawing on each ghost and making the garland their own.
The great thing about this craft is that all you need is good craft or construction paper. You may need to help your kids when cutting out their own ghosts and pumpkins, especially if your kids are young, but there are only a few cuts to make. Once you’re finished, they can fill in the rest.
Here’s how to make your own garland:
- Fold the paper accordion style with each section being approximately 3 inches.
- Have your child trace a shape that he or she would like to cut. With orange paper, you can make pumpkins. White can be used for ghosts, and green paper can become little Frankenstein heads. As they trace, make sure each section is still connected. Otherwise, the pieces will fall apart once cut.
- Now cut out the shape. You can do this if your kids are too young to use sharp scissors, or you can let them try kids scissors if the paper isn’t too think.
Once the cuts are finished, stretch out the paper and see the garland. Your kids can choose to keep it without additional decor, but where’s the fun in that. Give them crayons, paints or markers and let them add their own funny faces and decorations to the garland.
When they’re finished, hang the garland in the living room or above their beds.
Fall snow globes
What do you call a snow globe with no snow? A fall globe? A glitter globe? Well, whatever you’d like to call it, these fun pumpkin glitter globes are fun to shake and look cool sitting on the mantle, especially when they’re backlit.
To make these glitter globes, you’ll need:
- Clear glass jars with secure lids, preferably in fun and curvy shapes.
- Corn syrup
- Water
- Glitter
- Orange paint
- Paint brush
- Black felt
- Glue
- Cork
- Scissors
Clear a table for your kids, and get to work following these easy steps:
- Take the lid off the jars and paint them orange. Let them dry.
- Fill the jar or bottle half way with corn syrup.
- Add a teaspoon of glitter to the jar. Then add a little more if you want, there’s no such thing as too much glitter.
- Fill the jar or bottle with water going almost all the way to the top. Secure the top with the now-dry orange lid.
- Cut out fun jack-o-lantern faces on the black felt. The faces can be spooky or silly — whatever your kids like. Glue them on the jars.
- Cut out a piece of the cork into a stem-like shape and glue it to the top of the lip.
- Shake up your pumpkin glitter globe.
If your kids would rather do a ghost glitter globe or even a Frankenstein face, add food coloring to the jar to change the color of the water. Your kids can cut out different faces for each type of jar. You can always paint the lids different colors and nix the cork stem altogether.
Pumpkin projects
What’s Halloween without a few pumpkin craft projects? These fun and funky projects go beyond just carving pumpkins. Here are a few pumpkin crafts that will bring out your kids’ creative sides.
Pumpkin tic-tac-toe
This is a fun project that becomes a game once you’re done making it. Your kids will have fun painting their own mini pumpkins, and when they’re done, they can use them to play tic tac toe.
Pumpkin tic tac toe requires just 8 small pumpkins and some masking or duct tape. Use colorful tape to make the game even more Halloween-themed. First, spit the pumpkins up into two groups, and give one or two colors to each side. Then let your kids go crazy and have fun painting the pumpkins any way you like. So long as the pumpkins are color coordinated, it won’t be hard to tell which pumpkin represents which side when you start playing with them.
Once your kids have had their pumpkin fun, lay out the tape and make a tic tac toe grid. Make up a bracket and see who in your family is the true tic tac toe champion. Clean up is easy with this game, and you can always put down the tape again when your kids are ready to play again.
Pumpkin painting
You don’t always have to carve pumpkins every year. Rather than carve, why not paint?
Pick up some extra acrylic paints at your local craft store and let your kids paint a work of art. They can paint faces, scenes or even their favorite superheroes or cartoon characters on their pumpkins and spend the afternoon getting them just right.
To keep your home clean while your little Picasos go wild, move the painting party to the garage and lay down some drop clothes or old sheets. Let your kids spread out and paint any scene they’d like.
Arts and crafts time is all about making time for your kids and letting them be creative and try new things. These fun Halloween craft projects are easy for kids of all ages and enjoyable for parents to do as well.
We want to know: Which of these projects will you be doing? Share with us in the comments!
