paint cut paste

okay, it’s the week before halloween, so it’s time to bust out one more (or a couple? we’ll see…) halloweeny crafts. i saw this make-shift monster on the no time for flash cards blog and decided to try it with my little monster.

reason being: we already had all of the materials at home, and we love to repurpose items we already have into art and playthings. also, after doing the monster mash on jib-jab where novi got to play the part of frankenstein, she’s pretty into this particular massive mutant.

all you need is stuff in your recycling bin and maybe a few tokens and art materials you can find around the home:

• an empty toilet paper roll or a paper towel roll cut in half (for two monsters! we did it this way.)
• green & black paint, markers, or crayons (we used watercolors)
• golf tees, beads, or cardboard scraps (anything that can be ear-like)
• googly-eyes, buttons, felt, or construction paper (anything that makes eyes)
• scissors
• glue

paint or color your toilet paper roll about 2/3 green and 1/3 black.

cut slits along the top of the black part and fold them down to make “hair” and paint the folded down flaps.

hair colorist

then poke holes for your golf tees to go through. or, if you’re like us and are not a golfing family, just glue on some beads or cardboard or whatever you have lying around for knobby monster ears. then we used buttons for eyes because googly-eyes didn’t warrant a special trip to the craft store, and why buy new when you can reuse whatcha got? i had beads left over from the stash i found for our leaf garland.

novi drew mouths onto the frankensteins, and our little monsters came to life!

they did the monster mash... waaahooooo...

so this frankenstein is green in more ways than one! (hey, what are blogs for if not for cheesy puns?)

i saw this cute halloweeny idea on counting cheerios, and so we tried it out on this cloudy afternoon — a ghost tree!

boooooo!

novi and i went on a walk to find the perfect tree branch. we found a great stem from the magnolia tree in our front yard. then i gathered up some cotton balls, white tissues, orange ribbons, a black marker, and a glue gun.

traditionally, tissue ghosts were made from lollipops wrapped in a tissue, but if your kid is anything like my kid, we would not have gotten through this project without a major sugar high and a late bedtime tonight. so i nixed the lollipops in favor of some cotton balls.

but can i have a lollipop?

we just put the cotton balls into the tissues, tied ribbons around them as bowties, and novi helped to draw eyes and a mouth on each ghost.

"daddy ghost & mommy ghost"

after that, i used a hot glue gun to affix them to the branch. you could use christmas tree ornament hangers, more ribbon, paper clips, string, or other kinds of tape or glue. (if using a hot glue gun, a grown-up should definitely do that part!) then we had a (kissable?) ghost tree to add to our already-overflowing halloween decor!

ghost love

i just saw this idea for making an adorable autumn tree on my amazingly talented pink & green mama friend’s blog, and we had to try it out. she was inspired by that artist woman’s blog on a similar project, which is so lovely! these trees are so cool for fall, and it’d be great to make one for every season!

creativitree in bloom

we actually did it a bit differently than my friend did, as she used watercolors, which would really work super-great. though today we were already painting with acrylics, so i just made a very watery brown and put a blob of it at the bottom of a piece of our paper. i showed novi how to blow the paint using a straw. (admittedly, i had to help her out a bit in the wind velocity department.)

blowing like the wind

we blew this way and that way to make the tree grow tall and branch out in random directions.

branching out

when it was nearly dry, novi glued colorful pieces of tissue paper to the tree to make leaves. (pink & green mama did this step before the painting, which also seems to work wonderfully.)

we hung our windblown tree outside to dry in the blowing wind.

novi's tree

it is during this time of year, when trees are changing colors and shedding, that we often take notice again of the simple beauty of a leaf. to spend time studying and knowing the leaf, then painting the leaf. one of my favorite subjects when watercoloring is a colorful autumn leaf.

my model on left; my painting on right

i’ve also been experimenting with painting ON leaves this year, with the inspiration of geninne’s art blog. (this woman is seriously amazing! i want to live in her studio!)

leaves as canvas

we recently made leaf garland, which has such natural beauty when hung in the home. but another wonderful study of leaves is something we all did as kids: leaf rubbings. i had forgotten how simple and lovely these can be until novi and i made a bunch of leaf rubbings this week. an activity that’s as basic as a leaf, a sheet of typing paper, and crayons.

also fun to cut out!

i’m enjoying the contemplative exercise of taking one natural object, in this case a leaf, and looking at it through various lenses and media. it’s even better when sharing this with a little one and seeing it from her perspective, too.

a good friend introduced me last year to what has become one of my favorite seasonal crafts – festive leaf garland! each is so earthy and naturally lovely!

all you need is wire (any bead or floral wire will do,) assorted beads (i love wooden and glass beads for this project,) beautiful fall leaves, and just about 10 minutes of time.

materials

then just string the beads onto the wire (i loop the wire back through each bead a second time to keep the bead in place) and weave the leaves onto the wire, too. easy as pie!

we had a little craft brunch for some friends, and the kids and parents made theirs together. (it’s good to have parents’ help for little ones, especially if your wire has sharp ends.) kids like to choose which leaf and bead goes onto the garland next — they make fabulous designers!

little leaf stringers

so cute to hang across doorways, hearths, on fences all season long!