Well, Autumn is here and we are loving it! I usually run “The Craftless Series” on my blog, but I must admit that a lot of practice has given me a real confidence boost. Here are some of the crafts that the kids and I have had a lot of fun doing together. We’re having such fun that we even have a standing craft weekly play date with a friend and her kids now! Love the autumn colors, the cooler weather, the delicious flavors and beautiful images we can play with this season.
Getting Started
We keep some supplies on our kitchen table with some paper all the time for the kids to just dabble with when they feel like it. We re-use glass jars and use one of those drink-carriers from a fast food drive-through (I KNOW! Bad Mom! haha!) But, they come in super handy. When this one breaks, I’ll probably go order two diet cokes on the way to gymnastics just to get another one. :)
Stencil Painting
This is not really season-specific but I found these scrapbooking stencils I must have purchased about 6 years ago (before kids) when I actually scrapbooked. Don’t tell me they are expensive. I don’t remember what they cost. They are our newest painting stencils.
A Spooky Ghost
My creative friend invited us over to make these one day. Styrofoam balls, mini christmas bulbs for eyes, some string and some cloth made cool ghosts to hang from the tree in our front yard!
Just cut the cloth lengthwise so that it can drape over the head, cinch some string around the head poke the eyeballs into the styrofoam through the cloth (may need to use a needle to prep) and suspend the ghost using the string!
Autumn Tree Art
Our real goal was to make an Autumn Bucket List Tree like the one in the Dinosaurs And Octopuses Blog, but I bought chenille pipe cleaners that didn’t offer enough support. We improvised and decorated tagboard with trees and made patterns with the pretty foam leaf stickers we bought at Hobby Lobby 40% off! The construction paper is blue because I ran out of white and the blue paper was 90% off. :) Oh, well. I think it’s pretty. BTW, Dad made that one. Pretty good, I think!
Chocolate Meringue Cookies
One thing we love is a light, airy cookie that melts in your mouth. We found this recipe for chocolate meringue cookies on allrecipes.com and loved it. We didn’t have any chocolate chips on hand, but we did have one of those small cylinders of mini-M&Ms that fell out of a piñata that night. I added 1/2 tsp of cinnamon to give them a Fall flavor. My family loved them!
Swirl Crayons (“Upcycled”)
This craft is not season-specific, although, it could be if we used only autumnal colors. I found this genius idea on the very helpful Hands On: As We Grow Blog! To see how to make them, check out her site here.
My kids were so excited about this!!! My daughter thinks they look like bottle caps. I never know what to do with all the itty bitty crayon pieces and I’ll admit that I’ve thrown them away or piled them into “give-away” bins. Now, I’m hoping more get broken so we can make more of these cool bottle cap swirl crayons!
Apple-Stamped Pumpkins
We made these on a play date with our friends! Totally got the idea from The NurtureStore’s Fall Play Planner! You just poke forks into apple halves and stamp away! To see the step-by-step, check out NurtureStore’s site here.
Stir Crazy Crunch
For Family Movie Night (Hello, Family Movie Night on the HUB channel every Saturday night- Tonight was the Muppet Treasure Island movie!), we made a ridiculous amount of pop corn in our maker. Our kids get a kick out of watching pop corn pop. Funny, I remember loving that, too. I found this recipe for “Stir Crazy Crunch” and it is delicious- We used almonds instead of peanuts, though.
Well, that’s our crafty week in a nutshell!
We’re totally making these Frosty Leaf Ghosts from the Disney Family website this week at our craft play date! Super simple and I think they’d be adorable on a streamer!
And we want to make these Snakes in Jelly from The Imagination Tree before Halloween!
Happy Crafting! Hope It’s Good! But, If It’s Not. That’s Okay. :)
