We do love making mosaics in this house. We’ve made paper mosaics, pasta mosaics and even nature mosaics. We also love making all kinds of resist art because, let’s face it, it is just so cool. So, what happens when we combine the two? We get these amazing pastel resist mosaic Jack-O-Lanterns that combine two of our favorites with lovely results. This is a beautiful fall or Halloween project for the kiddos.
Magazine collages were a favorite activity of mine when I was a young girl. They are easy and fun to make and the end results are just so cool. If you have a bunch of old magazines sitting around, these jack-o-lantern magazine collages are a creative way to make use of them before tossing them into the recycling bin. 
We were given a few small pumpkins yesterday. Last night, after a rather long & exhausting day, my family all fell asleep early. I was a little bored & was antsy to do something with my hands. I grabbed one of the mini pumpkins, some Sharpies & regular markers and decided I was going to make a stained glass Jack-o-lantern.
I sat on my chair & a half and watched ‘Identity Thief’ with the pumpkin & and markers on my lap.
I drew on the Jack-o-lantern’s face.
I drew random shapes around the Jack-o-lantern’s face.
I used my daughters markers to color in the shapes. Different colored Sharpies would work best, but we didn’t have any so we just used Crayola markers.
This didn’t take me very long to make & I thought that it came out pretty cute. This is what a bored mama does on a Saturday night.
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My picky daughter has recently discovered that she loved eggs. She like them in every form, scrambled, fried & hard-boiled. This is great news to me, as my husband & I love them too. We just finished an extra-large carton of eggs. Normally, I would store the egg carton away to use for craft projects at a later date, but since we are moving I can no longer hoard things away. What does that mean to us? That means last night we made a lot of egg carton crafts.
We decided that we were going to make pumpkins & jack-o-lanterns, so we cut up our carton & painted each piece in orange & then let them dry.
For our first craft, we cut a stem & leaf out of construction paper.
We glued them down to another piece of paper. We took 7 carton pieces & glued them around each other to form a circle.
Here was Mai’s finished project. Don’t forget that each child’s abilities are different in crafting.
Mommy went a little further & made her project into a jack-o-lantern. We used construction paper for the face.
Next we made more jack-o-lanterns.
Glue two painted carton section to each other.
Cut out and glue a stem to the top.
Fold a pipe cleaner in half & curl the ends to form vines. Glue construction paper leaves to the end.
You may leave these as pumpkins or cut out small face pieces out of black construction paper.
Our last craft was a pumpkin patch.
We cut out a corn-stalk & glued it to the paper.
Glue the carton pieces around the stalk.
Draw in the stems, vines & leaves.
We used up every bit of egg carton & made a ton of cute and fun crafts.
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As much as fall is my favorite season, Halloween is my favorite holiday. Halloween is next week & we are looking forward to taking Mai trick or treating. I wanted to let her choose her own costume this year. I asked her several times & her answer has always been the same. “I want to be a Jack-o-lantern, mama.” Our daughter loves pumpkins & Jack-o-lanterns, so next week our daughter will proudly strut the streets as the cutest Jack-o-lantern ever to say “Trick or Treat”.
Until then, we can have a little fun making our Halloween crafts in anticipation.
Pasta Jack-O-Lanterns
You will need:
Jumbo shells (as used for stuffed shells)
Farfalle
Ziti
You will need 1 piece of each of these pastas for each Jack-o-lantern
Orange & green paint
Black Sharpie
Glue gun
Directions:
Paint the jumbo shells orange & the Farfalle & ziti green.
Let the pieces dry.
Glue the ziti piece into the shell as shown.
Glue the Farfalle piece over the ziti.
With a black sharpie, draw on your Jack-o-lantern face.
Last weekend was a big fun fall weekend for us. We did our hayride, went apple picking, went to the fair & picked pumpkins too.
This weekend, in the aftermath of a bad tummy virus, we put a hold on our plans to go to the corn maze & leaf peeping. All is well now, but I wanted Mai to continue to rest at home rather than running around. Last weekend we picked up a lot of pumpkins. I bought two full sized ones for carving, but Mai really wanted the little pumpkins because they were so cute.
The mini pumpkins were great because they were just the right size for my little pumpkin. She may still be too small to be wielding carving tools, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t have some fun. Pumpkins are not just for Jack-O-Lanterns anymore, after all.
Painting Pumpkins
We painted pumpkins mid-week. She is getting to be such a great little painter. She painted one pumpkin red with a green stem. “Look mama, it looks like an apple.” It really does.
Yesterday she asked to paint more pumpkins, so we did. Then we broke out the glue & the glitter for some extra fun. Seriously nothing lights my daughter’s face up faster than the prospect of pouring glue & glitter on something. This is a super easy, moderately messy, but very cute craft. Simply let your artist pour or paint on the glue & then shake on the glitters of your choice. Let dry & then shake off the excess glitter. Use paper or drop cloths to work on & to catch the glitter. When you are done, if you are stingy like me, you can pour the excess glitter back into its container for next time.
Glitter Pumpkins
Mai had so much fun making these. She even made one as a present for her Auntie Linda. “I make this one for Auntie Linda. She is so proud of me.” I bet Auntie is going to love it.
Our little pumpkin family.
As I have told you before, our daughter has a very strong sense of family. It is extremely cute how she refers to everything in terms of mama, dada & baby. When we were picking the pumpkins, she would tell me, “This is mama pumpkin, daddy pumpkin & the baby pumpkin.” And so they shall be.
For daddy pumpkin, I fashioned him a Patriots hat out of foam.
It looks just like us doesn’t it? These were all so much fun, I think we will have to pick up more pumpkins next weekend.
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