Creative Halloween Crafts

The Halloween season can provide a wide variety of ideas for children to show off their imagination and creative handiwork. Parents and children can also have a lot of fun spending time together making Halloween crafts to decorate their home.

Here are two quick and easy Halloween crafts to get you started:

Grocery Bag Ghost

Supplies:

White Balloons

White plastic grocery bags

Glue or tape

Scissors

Black Marker or luminous paint

String to hang ghosts from the ceiling

Step 1.

Blow up the balloons. If possible, you may want to have the balloons inflated with helium so they can float freely and move around the ceiling, your ghost will then be able to show up in unexpected places, just like a Halloween ghost.

Step 2.

Cut the handles off of the white grocery bags and cut them down the sides to make a large flat rectangle. Cut this into strips about 1/2 to 1 inch wide. Glue or tape each strip firmly to the balloon, working around the lower third of the balloon hanging the strips so they hang like the tentacles of an octopus. You may want to discard any strips that have brightly colored printing, or hang them with the printed side inside.

Step 3.

Using a marker pen or black paint, draw a ghostly face in the act of screaming. You may prefer to use luminous paint for the face, and perhaps down some of the strips, so it will glow in the low lighting during your Halloween party.

Step 4.

Hang your ghost from the ceiling so your guests get gently touched by the hanging strips as they move around the room, and get the feeling they may have encountered a Halloween ghost.

Egg Carton Spider

Supplies:

Paper egg cartons (This works best with egg cartons made of recycled paper rather than plastic.)

Black paint

White paint or googly eyes

Long black pipe cleaners

String to hang the spiders with

Step 1.

Cut out the egg cups to make the body of your spiders. Place them on a sheet of newspaper and paint them black, inside and out. When they have dried, make four holes down one side, and repeat on the opposite side. Insert four long black pipe cleaners through each pair of holes to make eight spider's legs. Bend the legs so they look like spider's legs.

Step 2.

Add two eyes at the head of your spider. You can use white paint or the kind of stick-on googly eyes you can buy at craft shops.

Step 3.

Insert a knotted thread through the center of the egg cup, so the spider can be suspended from the ceiling without tilting too much. Hang your large hairy spiders by their threads in places where they will scare your guests.

As you can see, Halloween crafts need not be expensive or difficult to make. Some of the best ideas use materials you may already have in your home.