DIY Spooky Fun & Crafts for the Kids

Have you been searching for something fun, easy and budget friendly to do with the kiddos for Halloween? Have you scoured Pinterest and came out with having more ideas than plans? I love Pinterest for inspiration, but they do not always have what I am looking for which inspires me to create our own inspirational creations. My kids never get tired of playing games and having fun. Arts, crafts, games and other activities are at their peak at our home during the holidays. Hopefully, these fun crafts will give you something new to do. Feel free to pin to Pinterest and share with your friends. If you make some, by all means leave the link so I can check it out.  

This is a few things we have been up to lately: Polka Dot Bowling pins with a pumpkin as the bowling pin.

Wash your empty soda bottles out and fill to a easily tipable level.

There are so many creations you can come up with paper plates, styrofoam plates and even the recycled plates. Depending on what your crafting needs are...that is they kind of plate you want.  We wanted sturdy plates that would last, so for the activity plates below, we went with styrofoam.  

Spooky Halloween streamer/hanging plates

Grab a empty toilet paper roll and some string.

 Cut 4 slits in each side.

Tie a knot on each end of the string and pull through the slits for legs.

Paper Towel tube cut in half.

 Paint your roll and the string black.

Let dry.

Cut a circle out of black construction paper.

Glue around the toilet paper ends and attach around the top.

Cut some eyes out or attach googly eyes.

I cut mine out of last years door cover.

Draw a little smile on and you can hang them from whatever you like.

Attach a string to the back end. You are all done!

Questions?

Autumn Activities and Treats for Fall

I love October. I love the many things that come around in October.  I plan on sharing ALL kinds of favorite things about this month in future posts.  As for today I thought the perfect way to start this month would be to show you a few things we are up to this weekend that fits perfectly with Halloween and Fall.

The first exciting thing I want to share involves my sweetheart of a husband.  He travels for work all over and always picks me up some of the most delicious and decadent desserts all of the time.  This weekend he was in Charlotte and picked me up something special.  Oh my goodness it was so soft and tasty. 

Then we picked up these awesome little Halloween Mugs at A.C. Moore for only $1.  What a great deal!

 These are so neat! The kids got started on coloring their customizable "SPOOKY" cups.  I like this even more because not only did it come with 3 sheets each but you could probably find some coloring pages and print your own to size or cut to size and have a always changing cup. 

I haven't figured out how to attached pdf for others to print. If you know how to do this and filled me in I would be forever grateful.  I have so much that I would like to share with everyone.

 Oh and my husband picked these up this weekend for the kids for only $1. 

Even though it rained and the kids and I were sick, we had a really enjoyable weekend. 

How did your weekend go?  Are you excited it is October?

Building Paper Monsters

So I was in a hurry yesterday on the way back home from Walmart & really didn't want to do more dishes, so the kids & I ran into Taco Bell.  The kids ended up getting something called MONSTER CRAFT in their little meal.  We get home & I am getting the sheets out so we could start going through and building the monsters & guess what ended up happening?   The how to's was not for a 4 and 7 year old I promise.  It took me AT LEAST 30 minutes just to build one of them.  I was laughing at myself & thinking how pitiful it was to have taken that long.  

I ended up taking the extra step of taping every piece in the inside and as many as I could on the outside.  I just knew in 5 minutes my 30 minutes of putting it together would be played to pieces.  I was wrong it took at least an hour for the arms to come out.  The kids then took extra care of them & put them in their own little beds to sleep for the night because they like them so much. They even gave them names. They played nice with each other and not one disagreement happened.  Makes me happy that they have such wonderful little hearts & imaginations.


Each pack came with 1 of each monster.  Those are all the pieces that fold into one another on each sheet behind the monsters.

They both have names, but I don't recall what they are right now. I will have to update that later.  

They are just to stinkin' cute!

Have you ever gotten a project & thought your kids would be doing it but instead you ended up doing it?? 

~*Fun mom times : ) *~

End of Summer Sponge Activities

Summer will be ending soon & Fall just can't get here fast enough.  I can't wait for that cool, crisp air. However, we are in Summer and the weather is still warm and I have to say, sponges are so fun. I never realized that sponges can be used for SO many things.  I saw a craft with sponge balls that I pinned to pinterest over the summer with hopes of making some(pre-blogger days).   I happened to remember the craft while on a trip to the store to get more sponges just for this craft.

I always buy sponges with the scrubbies on the side from the Dollar Store or Family Dollar.  However, this time I ended up at Wally world and the specific sponges the craft called for was $4 for just a few of them, so I passed. I am all in for thrifty shopping and I am always in the mind frame "More for your money." That isn't always the best saying for everything, but in this particular craft yes.  I did stop by Dollar Tree that happened to be across the parking lot and grabbed me some good ole $1 sponges. The craft for the sponges I saw was for water play. I really went outside the box. When I started creating, I just couldn't stop and the ideas just kept coming.

Who doesn't love crafts for 1 dollar!

So lets see how many things we can find to do with sponges!

Before I cut them my 4 year old had some motor skill stacking fun.

I sneaked in some learning while they were having fun.  Hehehe!

We had LOTS of fun once we put them together too!  

 

 

I had a few uneven parts of the sponge balls so I just snipped the ends off.  I should have used sharper scissors.  The kids had fun throwing the little pieces at each other.  My creative juices was flowing pretty good after all of these activities, so I came up with this DIY paint brush. I grabbed my glue gun and glued the square to the end of a almost dried out marker. Ta Da!

I had my 4 year old test out the durability of our new paint brush. He is VERY particular on details in his art work, he always has been. You will not find a white spot in any of his coloring pictures. We went with green paint because it is his favorite color other than brown.

 The sponge held up so I rinsed the paint out & it found a home in the paint bin.

His Masterpiece!

We did find a few more activities with our new sponge balls:

1. The kids had some bath time fun with them.

2. Toy car washing outside.

3. Tossing them at each other when all the washing is done.

4. Washing dishes(haven't done this one yet because I love the ones with the scrubbies on the other side).

Its always fun to get so many uses out of something that was practically free.  Happy crafting!

My daughters All About Me school Project

All About Kaylei

This is our 1st at home school project! So here is a few things about Kaylei! 

She traced her foot and her hand!

She loves dressing up.

She LOVES to sing and dance.

She loves to create her own designs with her plastic stencil outfit designer!

Born On July 26, 2005 in Gulfport, Mississippi

When I grow up I plan to: be a jewelry Designer

If I could wish for anything it would be to be a real princess.

Favorite colors: Purple and Pink

Favorite School Subjects: Science, Reading and Art

Favorite Seasons: Spring & Fall

Favorite Holidays: Easter & CHRISTmas.

Favorite Pizza: Spinach

These are a few things she picked to bring as her favorite things.  Being she is 7, her favorite things change often.

 Bag Contents:

A little cat with real feeling fur 

A bracelet she made

 A compass she got in her goody back for her birthday

A beaded flower ring

A nickel

A football bag with a bow

And Trinocalers- : ) her own creation decorated with a Lala Loopsy she designed an outfit for all wrapped with a strand of plastic from a pom pom with a few beads.

It was a fun project to do together.  Have you done any at home school projects yet?



Make a Water Lava Bottle

I know you have seen these before.  I remember playing with bottles to make the swirling tornado just by doing a quick swirling motion with the bottle.  I loved that and my kids always love anything that involves a good mess. 

Supplies:

1. Plastic Bottle

2. Water

3. Oil

4. Food Coloring

Fill the bottle 3/4 full with vegetable oil.

Fill the rest of the bottle with water (almost to the top but not overflowing).

Add about 10 drops of food coloring of your choice. Be sure to make the water fairly dark in color.

*~*~Notice that the food coloring only colors the water and not the oil. COOL

Another Super Neat option for a lava bottle is to drop in a alkaseltzer tab and place a flashlight under it and watch it bubble.

Alkaseltzer Bubbling Lava Bottle:

** We used a recycled water bottle which takes less liquid than the vase used in the above video; making the liquid measurements different.

CON:  After going through a few runs of putting a tab in to watch it bubble the oil starts to turn cloudy.  I only had the orange alkaseltzer tablets here, so I don't know if that is why. The flashlight under the bottle was a really great idea.

  HaVe FuN!



DIY Foam Pinwheel

The kids love those little spinner pinwheels on the plastic sticks. They could blow on them all day and watch them, like they are being hypnotized. What a cute and simple craft activity. The base of the pinwheel is so simple and even a child could make it. I plan on making more of these with paper. Paper wouldn't be a durable as the foam, but scrapbooking paper is awfully cute. 

Supplies:

1 square piece of foam

Approximately 3 inches of Green Craft Wire

Scissors

2 beads to secure sides

A popsicle stick if you want to attach it for it to turn.

Directions:

1. Get a Square piece of Foam

2. Cut from corners in as shown.

3. Poke a hole as shown in the right sides of each corner. (Green Craft Wire)

4. Push Green Craft Wire through the middle & fold over the right sides of each corner to the middle on to the wire.  Once complete loop the wire on ends of the round beads.

Leave enough room in between for it to be able to turn if you want it to attach it to a stick.

Completed Pinwheel

If you want to put it on a popsicle stick or something to turn then just make sure your green wire is long enough. We made this one for a pretend ring, so it doesn't turn. You could make it turn if you wanted to by pushing a long hollow bead through the center piece with the bead securing it on the other side. We will make more in the future and I will be sure to include a stick so our pinwheel will turn.



Handprint Birdies!

Little hands have so much talent and they are the BEST of loving keepsakes!  Just a reminder of how small they once were and are. One day I will miss those messy little hands and dripping paint. Small hands make the best art. We made the cutest little birdie hands recently and we just had to add some googly eyes. We made 3 little hands...the kids picked their own colors and we got to work. 

 We used:

* Cardstock Paper

* Washable Kids Tempera Paint

* Googly Eyes (the ones that have sticky backs)

* Orange Marker

* Black Ink Pen

If you want your birdie to fly to the right then use their LEFT hand and if you want it to fly to the left use their RIGHT hand. Don't do it too thick or it will take forever to dry and it doesn't have as good as effect visually if it had less paint. This was our first try so some parts the paint was a little too thick. 

Once their hands were all painted and stamped on the cardstock, we let them dry and attached the googly eyes. I drew the beak and little feet on with the orange marker and drew the mouth mark with my black ink pen. A mommy moment to remember for sure. What kind of handprint art is your favorite?

Fun Constellation Learning and Crafts

Star Light Star bright,
The first star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight.

Learning about Constellations!

This award-winning book capturing the glittering light show of the constellations is now available in paperback.

Take an illuminating ride through the starry night sky with National Geographic's Zoo in the Sky! Little Bear and the Great Bear in the Northern Sky; the scaly dragon winding his long tail; the Great Dog chasing the Hare in the Southern Sky; all are beautifully rendered in Christina Balit's vibrant art, studded with shiny stars, which perfectly illustrates Jacqueline Mitton's rich text.

"This is an attractive introduction to astronomy... The simple poetic descriptions will capture the attention of preschoolers and early elementary-age children alike. A brief explanation of stars and constellations rounds out this lovely and unusual offering." —School Library Journal.

We learned about Ursa Major the Bear and Draco the Dragon....

and made some super cool GLOW IN THE DARK Constellations for our wall!

Draco the Dragon Glow in the Dark Constellation

Ursa Major Great Bear Glow in the Dark Constellation

We did these activities by using a pre-made stencil of each constellation.  

1. The holes were punched out of the actual star positions within the constellation and we traced it with a metallic silver permanent marker. 

2. Then we put the little metallic stars on top of the dots and place a nice sized dot of Glow in the Dark glue on the star. The bigger the dot the more glowing effect it has.


This turned out to be a really fun learning activity for the kids and they love reading. We love all of those sparkling stars above and learning about the constellations. 

Kids Rainbow Activity

We Learned about reflection and refraction as well as why Rainbows exist. 

A book about that:

  Overview

Sally and Nick want to paint rainbows, but they don't know what colors to use, or what order to put the colors. And where do rainbows come from, anyway? The Cat in the Hat is not quite sure himself, but he knows someone who will know—King Kaleidoscope, ruler of Colorgalore! So it's off to visit the King in this funny, fact-packed book based on an episode of the PBS Kids show The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! featuring 3-D artwork on every page—and a pair of 3-D glasses!

Making Construction Paper Rainbows

Rainbow 1 with a hugging sun

Rainbow with a bowl of gold

Rainbow with a bowl of cereal

We had a lot of making rainbows and learning all about them. Arts, crafts and cartoons...it doesn't get better than that. All of their pictures turned out great and reflected each of their artistic imaginations.