As Halloween falls during Half Term this year it’s the perfect time to get the kids involved in some frightfully good arts and crafts.
Cardiff Council has collated some art and craft ideas to have a fab-boo-lous time at home, creating Halloween decorations using recycled household items.
1. Ghostly Milk Bottles
Use a black pen to draw faces on empty milk bottles, then carefully cut out a flap at the back of the bottles, towards the bottom. Put fairy lights or an LED candle inside the bottle to make them glow and use sticky tape to shut the flap. The lights should weigh the bottle down and keep it upright.
2. Toilet roll Mummy
Collect empty toilet roll tubes. Cut strips from old white bits of carrier bags and wrap them around the tube and stick them down. Glue googly eyes to the tube or draw them on with a black pen.
3. Kitchen roll spooky eyes
Draw two eyes on the side of an empty kitchen roll tube and cut them out, then place glow sticks inside. Place them in your windows or garden!
4. Fizzy drink bottle monsters
Wash and dry your fizzy drinks bottles and draw on a ghoulish face with a wide open mouth.Cut off the top of the bottle and cut a mouth for the monster and paint. Fill the bottom of the bottle with sweets and chocolates.
Source: Craftberry
5. Colourful bottle top spiders
Collect used plastic bottle tops from squash bottles, water or fizzy drinks. If required, you could paint or spray paint them green, red, black or orange to stick to the Halloween theme. Cut pipe cleaners into the desired length for the spider’s legs. Tape one end together and tape them to the back of a plastic bottle top. Pop googly eyes on the front of the bottle top and that’s it! You could hang them from string or pop them on spider webbing to decorate.
6. Tin can witch
Rinse any old tin cans – baked beans, spaghetti or soup cans for example. Punch a hole in the bottom with a hammer and nail. Cut a piece of string and thread it through the hole, making a loop so it can be hung up. Paint the can green, purple or any other colour to fit your theme, stick googly eyes to them and design your witches face. Get creative! Try an egg box nose or cardboard hat. Tape long strips of plastic bags to the rim of the can so that when it’s hung up the strips dangle down.
7. Halloween treats egg box
Cut out individual egg cups from an empty egg box and paint the egg boxes. You’ll need two of each colour so if you have a box of six paint two orange, two green and two white. Once dry, use a permanent marker pen to draw a pumpkin on one of the orange cups, a Frankenstein on one of the green cups and a ghost on one of the white cups. Pop sweets and chocolate in the other cup and place the face on top.
Source: The Centsible Life
8. Painted Halloween scene jam jars
Wash and dry old jam, marmalade, pickle, coffee or any other glass jars you have and remove the labels. Mix craft paint and PVA glue together and paint the glass jar.The glue helps the paint to be transparent so you can see the flicker of the candle through the paint. Let the jars dry and then draw spooky scenes on the side or use black silhouettes cut out from card and stick to the side of the jar. Pop in a battery candle or fairy lights and enjoy!
Source: Jedi Craft Girl
9. Cereal box monsters
Collect empty cereal boxes and paint, stick, cut and paste a funny or scary monster face onto the side. You could even cut out a mouth and fill the box with sweets and treats.
10. Cardboard box costumes
If you’ve been ordering online during lockdown, you probably have an impressive collection of cardboard boxes. Reuse them this Halloween by making creative costumes! The kids could become a robot, a unicorn, a dinosaur, a box of crayons, a Minecraft character….the only limit is your imagination! Google images or look on Pinterest for ideas to get you started.
If you’re unsure of what belongs where, check out Cardiff Council’s Recycling A-Z and type in an item to find out how to dispose of it correctly. From polystyrene to plastic and balloons to bubblewrap the site has got it covered to make sure you put your waste and recycling in the right place.
