halloween bouquet

If you're looking for a Halloween project that you can work on while you catch up on all of the season premieres- then this is it! It really is such a simple project. I just drew a template of a bat and ghost. (Well my soon to be sister in law helped me out with the ghost- thanks Judy!) I traced the patterens onto some white cardstock for the ghost, and black and grey cardstock for the bats.  (Let me know if you'd like me to post the templates for the bat and the ghost.)

 Once I had a few of each shape cut out, I taped them onto sticks. I glued googly eyes on the ghosts, but you could just as easily draw on eyes and mouth if you'd like. I covered the outside of the jar with a piece of patterened paper. Then I crumpled up a piece of paper and squished it in the jar so that the sticks would stay just how I arranged them.

Here's an up close shot of the casst. Grey bat, black bat, and white ghost.

There you have a Halloween bouquet of bats and ghosts.

Linking up with: Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Sun Scholars  & Today's Creative &  Tatertots and Jello

footprint flying witch

I can hardly believe that the summer's nearly over and that it's almost fall. Thank goodness. I am welcoming this cooler weather with welcome arms (I love sweater weather!)  The kids and I have been working on some fall art projects. One of the first ones that we've done is this footprint witch. How very halloween!

This is such a simple project to do. All you need are a few basic things that you probably already have on hand.

Supplies:
black and cream colour paint
markers (I just used Claire's crayola ones)
googly eye
paper scraps (or you could just use a marker to draw them on)

1. Paint the heel using the cream paint, and then quickly paint the rest of the foot black. Stamp onto the paper.
2. Once it's dry start to draw on the details. I started by drawing the broom first.
3. Draw on smile, and messy hair. Draw on arms holding onto the broom.
4. Glue on googly eye.
5. Cut a triangle out of black paper for the witch hat. I cut a small, thin rectangle out of purple for the band on the hat.
6. Cut out (or draw, I don't trust my drawing!) a few stars for the night sky.
7. Display. Claire LOVES seeing her artwork on display.

Linking up with: Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Sun Scholars  &  Tatertots and Jello

fun fall activities printable

Looking for some fun fall activities for kids (mostly toddlers)? Look no further. You can download this little list here.

Some of these ideas I've seen on Pinterest (of course) and I can't wait to try them with my kids this year. Things like ghost mashed potatoes, leaf ghosts, and thankful tree. Other ideas we've already done, like the footprint fire trucks (a great activity for fire prevention week), leaf caterpillar print and turkey handprints.

It's nice to be able to check off activities on a list so that the whole season doesn't pass you by without you getting to do the things you had hoped to do.

What are you favorite things to do in the fall?

Linking up with:Craftaholics Anonymous & Skip to my Lou &Tip Junkie &  Tatertots and Jello

leaf print Hungry Caterpillar

Claire LOVES the Hungry Caterpillar. Who doesn't?? So I came up with this little leaf print craft to make with her.

To get started we used green paint, a lime green paint and a little bit of white paint so that our picture would look a little bit more like the one in the book. I drew a light line on the paper as a guide for us to follow where to press the leaves. Claire was more interested in helping me paint the leaves than pressing them on the paper. We also used a few different sizes of leaves. We started in the middle with the largest leaf, and then worked our way down the sides using smaller leaves. After we had the body of the caterpillar done we went outside to find a nice big leaf for the face and two very small leaves for the ears. Picking the leaves off of the trees was definitely Claire's favorite part! Once the body is dry you can add the eyes, I cut mine out of paper.

Then I thought that it might be fun to stamp the circles that are on the first page of the caterpillar book. I drew two lines on a piece of white paper and just let Claire picked random colours that she wanted to stamp on the paper between the two lines. This would have been lovely done on the same piece of paper as the caterpillar, but Claire's a bit of a wild cannon with her stamping sometimes, so we used another piece of paper, and then taped the pieces together when they were dry.

 Ta da! A perfectly frame-able work of art- Hungry Caterpillar style.

Linking up with:Craftaholics Anonymous & Skip to my Lou &Tip Junkie & Sun Scholars & Today's Creative Blog &  Tatertots and Jello