For the past week or so I have been pottering about with various Halloween-y things, sometimes to entertain the children and sometimes because I just can’t help myself. Autumn brings out the crafty side of me and once I get started on paper crafts I find it hard to put the scissors, card and glue away again.

Here’s what I’ve made.

Spooky Silhouettes, with Number Three as my helper

What you’ll need:

Black card

Wooden skewers

Sticky tape

Scissors

Cut out ghost figures, bat shapes and pumpkin figures from the black card. Stick a skewer to the back of each using sticky tape. Ta da! You are finished. All you need to do now is amaze your children with the spooky shadows the paper figures make against a plain wall.

 

Haunted House Tealight Holders

What you’ll need:

Black felt tip pens

White paper lunch bags

Small jam jars or ramekins

Tea lights

Take a paper lunch bag and lay it flat on a table. Use a black felt tip pen to draw a spooky looking house. For some reason houses look spookier if you draw the base narrower than the upper story and add plenty of windows and a smoking chimney. Colour the house in black leaving on the windows white. Place a tea light into the jam jar or ramekin you are using then place the jar into the bag. Turn off the lights, light the candle and enjoy the spookiness.

Paper Pumpkin Faces

What you’ll need:

Black card

Orange card

Glue

Scissors

Cut pumpkin-sized pumpkin shapes out of the orange card. Cut out a face like you’d carve into a pumkin. Turn the paper pumpkin over so that you are looking at the back of it. Cut out piece of black card to cover the eyes, nose and mouth you have cut out. Glue them into place. Finished!

You can use these to stick to your front door or for a party game along the lines of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. In this case you can cut out a paper stalk for the pumpkin from green card and get the children to take turns trying to stick it onto the pumpkin, blindfolded.

Spider Webs

What you’ll need:

Black card

Scissors

Take a square of black card and fold it in half diagonally into a triangle. Fold it in half again and again until you have a narrow triangle. Cut off the tip, then cut small triangles of the sides. When you unfold the paper you should have something resembing a black cobweb to use as decoration on the wall or table.