Quick, Simple & Cheap Halloween Project for the Kiddos

This is in no way, a clever project...but if you want to keep your kids entertained for a few moments, this a life saver. All you need is a sheet of paper (preferably cardstock or construction paper), some tissue paper and a Sharpie. Take your paper and draw an outline of a pumpkin, bat, ghost, spider or whatever spooky Halloween image you can think of. You'll want to cover the majority of the page and remember, it's just the outline. No details needed! You could probably google the image and print it off if you have little faith in your artistic abilities. I drew a spider for my kids. 2 simple circles and then bent lines for legs. I apologize for no photos, but this is a simple concept so hopefully they're not needed.

Here's where the kids come in! Give them a sheet of the tissue paper in the appropriate color (ex. orange for pumpkin...duh) and have them rip it into tiny pieces about the size of a quarter or so. Then give them some glue and glue those suckers on! And by that I mean, fill in the outline by gluing the tissue paper down. Have the kids fill the picture in completely so that no spots are showing. And that's that!

And because this post is severely lacking in pictures...ChelseaAnn

Waiting For Fall...

With the nip in the air this morning (I had to pull out my four inch-thick sweater!) I'm already thinking ahead to the holidays. Which is completely weird since I absolutely love Halloween and could never skip it! But ideas for fall wreaths are running (sporadically) throgh my head and I'm getting the itch. You know, the crafting itch? That irrepressible urge to craft no matter the time of day, lack of materials or how many responsibilites already lie on your plate. But I'm controlling myself...sorta.

In the meantime, I had to do something. I noticed that my front door display still needed a little extra somethin-somethin. And I knew just what to do!

I was at a friend's house the other day who gave me a few extra decorations she no longer needed. Incuding these:

I immediately knew what I wanted to do with the cute pot. I went outside and found some "creepy" twisted looking sticks and spray painted them a metallic silver...it was all I had on hand but I think it worked!

I had some floral foam and stuck it in the bottom of the pot and put some rocks around it to weigh it down. After the sticks were dry I stuck them in the foam. I had a package of spider web stuff I picked up at Wal Mart ealier. I put some at the base of the sticks to cover the foam and rocks. Then I loosely hung some around the sticks.

I thought it needed a little extra so I hung some paper bats from a few of the sticks.

For the bats I just printed out an outline and cut them out of black cardstock.

I have a little planter stand that had been sitting {somewhere} in storage for awhile. After sucking it up, I dug through the storage and finally found it.

I laid some more spider webs on the top part and set the pot on top. I used the cute ghost house to fill in the bottom layer and nestled some more spider web around that. And since I only paid for the spider web ($2) I had an awesome Halloween display for practically nothing!

Happy Halloween!!

ChelseaAnn

Halloween Cupcake Liner Wreath

Halloween is absolutely my favorite holiday of the year! In order to showcase my um...obession, I made a super cute and easy wreath from cupcake liners. You'll need to grab some various colored cupcake liners. There area whole bunch of cute Halloween ones out now! You'll also need a styrofoam wreath, black netting or touelle and some decorative accents of your choosing. The liners I bought also cme with some cute cupcake toppers.

Before I get started, I have to apologize for my not-so-great pictures...it was late and I was in a rush.

First things first, in order to get your liners to flatten out you'll have to fold your liners in half.

Then, to create your starburst pattern, cut slits every so often. Measurement is up to you completely. Fewer slits means bigger "rays" and more slits are smaller and more "rays."

When you are done simply apply with a glue gun! I used several different liners as you can see and in some areas I left some folded and glued to the sides. I also have bits of black netting in places although it didn't really show up in the pictures!

If you try it out, send in you own picture! I wanna see!

ChelseaAnn