Salaric

I picked up this big box of spooky craft in The Works – a discount book shop chain I have rescently discovered. I was not expecting it to be that good as a previous kit I had got from them had been a bit of a flop when I got my scouts to use it but I was pleasantly suprised by what I found upon opening it!

The pipe cleaners ranged in sizes and where strippy and glittery as where the pompom balls and foam shapes and goggly eyes. The goggly eyes also had sticky backs on them which was a huge bonus. There where also sheets of crepe paper in appropriate halloween colours namely – red, black, green, purple and yellow. There where coloured lolly sticks in black, yellow and green and four blank cards in purple, black, yellow and white, a bag of foam shapes and PVA craft glue. There were also some orange, green, black and purple metallic sequines of various types and sizes.

Having been stung by craft kits before I opened one of the kits and had a bit of a play. Happy that the kids would be able to get something good out of this I took them in for the Scouts Halloween party.

And here is what some of the kids produced:

This flying cyclops was made by taking a medium sized red pompom and sticking a large goggly eye on it, the kid then took a large orange leaf shape from the foam shapes and cut out the wings which he simply glued on the top to great effect!

for this cute skull the kid used one medium sized white pompom, one large goggly eye and one medium goggly eye, and red and white fluffy pipe pipe cleaners. First off they stuck the eyes on – the fact they are different sizes worked very well to give it a monsterous appearance. The eyes where slef adhesive so no glue was needed. He then twisted a red and white pipe cleaner together and wraped these around the pompom so that the wire in the pipe cleaner helped the skull retain its shape and the red was supposed to represent blood.

For this ghost the Scout used one washed out yogurt pot, one large white pompom, one white fluffy pipe cleaner, two googly eyes, PVA glue and a sheet of white waxy paper that I got from some packaging.

He started by covering the yogurt pot with glue and squidging the paper onto it, he then stuck the pompom on the top, stuck the eyes on and wrapped the pipe cleaner round the middle to make arms – I thought this was quiet effective.

For this spider they used one medium black pompom, two medium goggly eyes and two green and two black stripy pipe cleaners. They simply stuck on the eyes to the pompom and then twisted the pipe cleaners around the pompom to make the legs – I didn’t have the heart to point out that spiders have twice as many legs but one of the other kids did at which point we decided it was obviously a mutant!

This cute little creator is apparently a frog bat highbred according to the Scout who made it! He used one medium sized black pompom, two small googly eyes, PVA glue and two green foam teaar drops.

He glued the two green tear drops together so that the large round parts of each where over lapping this made what is either the wings or legs – he hadnt decided which they where. He then glued the pompom on to the green sheets again at the round end and then added the eyes.

They all had great fun with this kit and there was so much in it that it helped out with their Chirstmas craft projects too 🙂

To make this pumkin I used one large orange pompom, a rectangle of black foam sheeting, a small green pompom, a pair of scissors and white PVA craft glue.

I squashed the large orange pompom so that it became more of a squart cylindrical shape than a sphere (can of tuna shaped instead of ball shaped).

I cut out two roughly equilaterial triangles from the black foam for the eyes with the remianing black foam sheet I cut out the mouth – this took a bit of thinking about as you have to cut away the teeth you want as they will be represented by the orange of the pompom. I then glued the eyes and mouth onto the orange pompom.

I then stuck the small green pompom on the top as the pumkins stalk – this was again simple but effective.

For this bat I used, a pair of scissors, white PVA craft glue, one small-ish black pompom about 1cm in diameter, two small googly eyes and one leaf shaped black foam shape.

I cut the shape for the wings out of the leaf shaped bit of black foam sheeting – I would recomend drawing out the shapes first – what I did however is I thought – umberella – sounds strange I know but it got me the correct shape. I cut out each wing seperatly then made a slite either side of the black pompom with the scissors – I did discover that the saftey scissors are a bit useless as this and resorted to using the small pair of scissors on my swiss army pen knife.

I then squidged in some glue into the slites and pushed a wing into each – I squeezed the whole closed over the end of the wing and waited a bit before letting go.

I then left it to stand so the glue could dry. Whilst it was drying I gingerly added the eyes. I think this would have been better if I’d used a needle and some black cotton and attatched a thread to it so that it could hang up – still this was incredibly simple and i think an easy kids project – my Scout group loved the bat.

This ghost was incredibly easy to make, my little two year old loves it and drags it around by its string. I used:

• One empty minni trifle pot but a large yogurt pot would do just as well

• One square sheet of white packing paper, this had a slight greese proof shiny quality to it, the size doesn’t really matter as long as it will cover the pot you are using – too large a piece of paper may make things a bit unwieldy. I think this paper came with some electronic components but any thin paper or material will do.

• One black circle just a bit smaller than a two pence piece – I used a shiny black plastic sequine type thing that would normally be used in card making.

• Two goggly eyes, I chose relatively large ones. They where also self adhesive though peeling off the backs was a bit fiddly. But you could just glue some on.

• A pair of scissors

• Some black string – I used a cotton yarn as I had lots of that lurking around the place.

First of all I squeezed out a spiral of PVA white craft glue onto the minni triffle pot – on the outside of the pot which was standing upside down on the table. I then placed the white paper square over it so that the centre of the paper was over the centre of the pot. I then gently pressed the sides of the paper onto the sides of the pot. I had to hold it cupped in my hand for a while to let the glue soak into the paper and hold it in place. I then glued the googly eyes and mouth onto the ghost.

Once the glue was dry I carefully poked a whole with the scissors at the top of the ghost – this was for the string which I poked through and then tied a knot in so that it would pull back through easily. That was it – really simple.