October is here! We can officially get excited about pumpkins and Halloween! I LOVE decorating for Fall!!! (Can never have too many exclamation points when sharing my excitement for Fall!!!). Gone are the days I can display my intricately designed, hand crafted grown up tablescapes. The delicate ensembles of thin glass hurricane lamps and the hand carved gourd tea light holders could never hold their own against the power of two Tasmanian toddlers. So, I put away anything glass, all my large ceramic pumpkins and delicate wreaths (you know all the stuff you don’t want kids touching!) for now and found some more kid friendly materials to decorate with.

Here are our favorite ways to decorate for Fall and Halloween.

Make a Monster Impression:

front door edit

This is simple, inexpensive and the kids can help! You can find everything in your dollar store.

supplies

Materials:

  • Large poster board
  • Large round paper plates (any solid color)
  • Small round, black paper plates
  • Small square paper plates (white)
  • Painters tape

Cut poster board in half. Then cut small triangles out of one side of paper to form a hair line. Depending on your door width you may need one, or both pieces of poster board.

Cut poster board in half and cut triangles for hairline.
Cut poster board in half and cut triangles for hairline.

Next, make eyes by taping the small black plate to the large colored paper plate and attach to the door.

Last, make a toothy grin using the square white paper plates.

Feel free to embellish with glittery bats, or other Halloween shapes. We decided to go with a girl monster this year and gave “Henrietta” some sparkly bat barrettes. My girls enjoyed posing with their monster afterward for our annual Fall pic!

 

Acorn Jewels:

Finished jewels. Display among other gems, or alone in a basket, on a tray.
Finished jewels. Display among other gems, or alone in a basket, on a tray.

One of our favorite things to do in the Fall is to collect acorns that fall off the Oak tree in our back yard. This year I found a fun project that is easy and super cheap.  We saved all our acorn caps in a cup and I pulled them out on a rainy day we needed something to do.

Materials:

  • Acorn tops (must be dry, clean and free from cracks)
  • Markers
  • Elmer’s Glue
  • Gems, or stones
  • Tray

Start with a layer of rocks, or gems on your tray. These will secure acorn tops in place.

Next, color the inside of the tops with a marker. It will look rough, but that’s ok!

Color in the acorn caps with favorite color markers.
Color in the acorn caps with favorite color markers.

Then pour Elmer’s school glue into each top and fill to the rim. Leave over night to dry and you won’t believe the effect!

Simply fill with Elmer's school glue and allow to dry over night.
Simply fill with Elmer’s school glue and allow to dry over night.

Have the kids check back to watch the colorful transformation.

The glue starts to soak up the colors and eventually turn clear; leaving behind a shiny coating of color.
The glue starts to soak up the colors and eventually turn clear; leaving behind a shiny coating of color.

What you have left are smooth, colorful jewels! I leave these in a basket of decorative pumpkins for easy access for the kids to play with.

 

Pumpkins, Pumpkins and more Pumpkins!

You simply cannot have enough pumpkins this time of year! We eat them, drink them and decorate with them! We have baskets filled with little decorative pumpkins, we color pumpkins, paint pumpkins and even carve our pumpkins.

pumpkins

Materials:

  • Pumpkins
  • Acrylic paints
  • Paint brushes -OR-
  • Carving tools

Our carving tradition is spearheaded by my hubby. He helps the girls select just the right family of pumpkins. Then they pour over different pumpkin design ideas before making the first cut. My girls are not squeamish at all about digging right in and squishing the pumpkin guts through their fingers.

Hubby manning the gore!
Hubby manning the gore!

Here are last year’s creations:

jack o lanterns

Confession: we made a trip to a pumpkin farm for the whole experience of seeing a real pumpkin patch, but I purchased our carving pumpkins for $2.88 each at Aldi’s. Whatever my kids have no idea…and by not spending $20 for one pumpkin (our above grand total for our cute monster, colorful acorn jewels and 3 carving pumpkins is $14.68) I purchased a few extra pumpkin lattes, pumpkin fritters, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin flavored pumpkins. Did I mention we like pumpkin?

For little ones not yet trustworthy with knives, give them a paint brush and some paints and let them paint their pumpkins!

All these crafts are fun for kids, easy to make and indestructible! Happy Fall Ya’ll!

What would your toddler think of a front door monster?