A couple of mornings ago during breakfast, Miss G turned to me with the sparkle in her eyes that means she’s got a brilliant new idea bubbling, and said, ‘Mama, I have an idea… We should decorate our whole apartment with Halloween stuff! Like ghosts and bats and jack-o-lanterns and all that spooky stuff.’ I agreed and got to thinking about all of the fun holiday items and decorations we had to leave in Canada when moving to the Middle East.
One of our favourite Halloween ones is this cute little bunting I whipped up after being inspired by this Halloween spook banner.
After briefly toying with the idea of making another one {with Gracen this time around}, I remembered Frogs, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails‘ awesome Frankenstein footprints, and then our little ‘trick-or-treat, smell my feet‘ cards we made a couple of years back… Naturally, if we could make both frankensteins and ghosts with Grae’s footprints, I wondered if we could make all of the creatures found on our original bunting…
With that, we got out our paint, a foam brush, a large bowl of warm soapy water for foot washing, a smaller bowl of water for brush washing, a towel, and a rag. With our creatures in mind, I painted Gracen’s foot, and she stamped it down on paper until we had all of the footprints we wanted.
This morning, when the footprints were good and dry, I cut around the feet and we decorated them together. First up was FSPDT’s Frankenstein, which turned out to be a favourite.
Now normally when it comes to arts and crafts, I let Gracen loose to create as she chooses, because for me, it’s all about the process, and not so much the product. But today, since we had specific creatures in mind, she asked if I would help her transform her footprints. I don’t know that we’ve ever done directed drawing of any sort, but she really enjoyed it.
We sat side-by-side and talked about our creatures and what they needed before I’d start drawing on my footprint. When I did, she’d watch carefully, then begin on hers, sometimes copying my creation closely, and other times adding her own elements.
Here’s a peek at our finished Halloween creatures {and things}…
Ghosts…
Owls…
Skulls…
Jack-o-lanterns…
Candy corn and mummies…
And Frankensteins! We wanted to do bats too, but didn’t have any black paint at the moment, and ended up skipping them all together sort of accidentally.
Now these little guys could be used to decorate in all sorts of ways, but because I’m a huge fan of buntings, we pinned them up on a string of baker’s twine using miniature clothespins.
Cute, aren’t they?
They stayed on the wall for a while, until Miss G decided that she actually wanted the trick-or-treaters to be able to see them, at which point they got moved to our apartment door.
Best of all, not only are these little guys Halloween decorations, but the fact that they’re footprints makes them a great keepsake too!
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awe, thanks so much for the mention and love. So thrilled to have partial inspired your footprints. They turned out beautifully. That owl is such a fun idea. will pin now:)