Paper Bag Pumpkin: Craft for Kids

Age 7 years and older

What you'll need:

1 brown paper lunch bag
Acrylic paint: orange and leaf green
Paintbrush
¼ sheet brown construction paper
6- 12” pieces of green raffia
Scissors

How to make it:

Paint the outside of the lunch bag with orange paint.

Paint the inside, top portion of the bag with leaf green paint. (See photo.)

Paint a second coat of orange paint on the bag, only this time, paint the top outside portion with the leaf green-colored paint.

When paint is completely dry, fringe the green section of the bag with your scissors, strips should be approximately ½” – 1” wide.

Fill bag with crumpled newspaper (if using as a decoration) or candy and treats.

Gather top of bag with your hand and tie a piece of raffia around it, just below the green section.

Continue tying pieces of green raffia around the neck of the bag until all of it has been used.

Cut a 1.5” wide strip of brown construction paper and roll up into a tube. Insert the tube of paper into the center of the green portion of the bag as the stem. If these bags are used as decoration, you can glue the stem in place.

Tips:

To reuse these decorations at Halloween, add faces as jack-o'-lanterns by gluing on yellow construction paper facial features.

If using these as party bags, you may want to grab all raffia pieces together and tie them into one knot to make them easier to remove rather than ripping the bag open.

To give the bags some weight, especially if they will be displayed outside, add a cup of sand or clean cat litter to the bottom of the bag before adding the crumpled newspaper.

Thank You Kaboose!

Christmas Cards

When I make cards, I always love to use some ribbon. I think it adds a lot to the look.

Pumpkin Friends

How cute are these!! They just make me laugh looking at them. You know your kids would have so much fun putting these together. I found these on family fun. Just go here to learn how to put your pumpkin friends together.

Thank You Card

Home made Play dough

How To Make Your Own Play Dough

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup water
Essential oils for scented play dough (a few drops)
Dyes

Directions:

Bring the water to a boil. While the water is coming to a boil, place all of the other ingredients into your mixer's bowl. Slowly add the boiling water with your mixer on medium-low speed. You can turn the speed up to medium when all of the water is in the bowl. When the mixture balls up, it is done! Just take it out and knead the dough a little bit.

Variations:

Substitute apple juice for the water and add a little cinnamon to the dry ingredients for "apple pie" play dough.Boil some blueberries in a little water and use the strained liquid (in place of some of the water) to dye your play dough. You can do this with carrots, spinach, and other fruits and veggies. You can also use spices like paprika to color your play dough.**For organic play dough, just use organic flour rather than plain white flour and make sure that you use natural dyes.**

I got this post from Jolly Mom. Thanks for the great idea!
If you want to try her finger painting with pudding activity as well, just click here.

Easter Cards

I made these back in the spring. I had so much fun. I am just adding some cards I have already made. I do need to go in my closet and pull out all of my supplies and start making cards and scrap some pages again. I haven't done anything since I had my baby. I think its getting to that time!

Baby Girl Annoucement

Here is another card I made for my little girls arrival. I was using the same paper on most of these cards. I just did some of the layouts differently. The letters were cut using my cricut. I have a sticker machine that I place the letters through. When they go through the sticker machine it will put tape on the back of the letters. It works perfect because its nearly impossible to tape letters that skinny. I used the cricut to cut a small circle and flower as well. On the small circle I used a stamp to put the word baby. I wasn't in the mood to do anything super complicated, so these layouts are all very easy.