Halloween is right around the corner as are tons of fall festivals and with that there are plenty of opportunities to need a cute, decorated pumpkin. Here in China Spring, Texas alone there is the CSISD Fall festival Saturday and the Journey Christian Community festival Monday, plus the Elementary school is requesting small/medium decorated pumpkins for their library thru November. While carving is the traditional method of decorating a Halloween pumpkin, there are far more kid-friendly options to allow youngsters more of a hands-on decorating experience.
One such example is the spider pumpkin. This pumpkin idea is great for kids who want to be involved but yet the final product still needs to be more than simply abstract. For this design simply drape your child with a tunic, fill a paper plate with a pool of washable black paint, hand them a medium to large paintbrush and let ‘em at it! This will allow the child to feel ownership of and connection to the final product.
Once the pumpkin is covered with black paint, hose off Jr. and let the pumpkin dry. Upon drying, simply use a toothpick to punch 4 holes in each side of the black pumpkin and push black wire or black pipe cleaners into these holes. You now have the spider’s legs. If you are brave allow Jr. to freehand eyes and a mouth onto the face of the spider. If the child’s skill set is not advanced enough for this task you can simplify it by allowing them to paint black pupils on large colored sequins to be glued onto the pumpkin for eyes—there far less risk involved with this method. After the eyes are glued on either the parent or the child needs to draw a smile onto the face. A last, optional, step would be to either paint of glue something onto the smile to represent teeth. In the example pictured 2 silver Christmas tree sequins were used. Simply cut the stem off of the tree and turn it upside down!
Happy Halloween!
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