Milk Jug Jack-O-Lanterns

With Halloween fast approaching, our house fully decorated and our Halloween party come and gone...the only thing left to do is Trick or Treat but until Wednesday comes we will be filling our remaining days with Halloween crafting and games. Last week when it was Preschool day at CousinBears we created some Halloween decor together...Simple but so Cute!

For today's kid friendly project you will need the following:

Black Construction Paper
Green Construction Paper
2 Green Pipe Cleaners
Scissors
Milk Jug (any size will work)
Water
Orange Food Coloring (or 2 Drops of Red and 10 drops of Yellow Food Coloring)
Glue Stick

Begin by peeling off your milk jug label, wash it out, fill it to the top with tap water, add your food coloring drops and finally close it all up with a tight twist of the lid. With your milk jug prepared, it is time to draw and cut out the shapes you want to use for your jack-o-lanterns face from the black construction paper. If you are working with little ones it is also a good time to go over the different shapes and their names...we are always learning around here.

Since you are cutting up the black paper it would also be a good time to draw and cut out a leaf or 2 for decorating the lid of the jug with. I find that it adds a nice 3 dimensional touch to the finished pumpkin but is definitely not a must so I leave that part up to you.

Now that everything is all cut out, filled up and colored it is time to get sticky and put it all together. Little ones find it easier to just put the glue all over the side of the jug and then attach all their face pieces...so this is the route I would take with under 5's. If your bears are a bit older you could have them put the glue on each individual piece and then attach if you like. Either way it looks nice and I didn't find that the glue showed where the black paper was not attached so no worries there.

Once you have all of your face pieces attached it is time to take your green pipe cleaners, hold one set of the  ends in your fore finger and thumb, while wrapping the other ends around and around your rest of your fingers, creating a wide, twisty look for the vines of your pumpkin. Now attach the straight ends to the lid by twisting the 2 ends together and laying the curly sides over top of each other to hold them both in place.

Sounds more complicated than it really is. Finally the addition of the green leaf and you are set...

If you would like your pumpkin to glow you could grab a glow-stick or 2 from the dollar store and set them to float inside the jug...I tried it but the ones we have either didn't glow enough or floated to the top where they didn't light up enough of the jug to make a difference. Any ideas on how to keep it down at the bottom of somewhere in the middle? Please feel free to share.

Now Go Be Halloweenie ....and create some cute Holiday Decor with your BabyBear or Bears!