Spooky Woods Part 2: The ghosts & pumpkins.

Need some ghosts to haunt the Spooky Trees? What about a few pumpkins or even some tombstones?

Following the instructions from Disney Family Fun page, we had a blast making these.

What you'll need:
1 cup flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup water
Bowl
Wooden spoon
Fine point permanent marker (I used paint)

Instructions:

1. Combine the flour, salt, and water in a bowl. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until smooth.

2. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces and shape each into a ghost, flattening the base so it will stand up. We decided to make one ghost for each kid and use the remaining dough to make pumpkins and tombstones.

3. Microwave the ghosts on a plate one or two at a time for 20- to 30-second intervals until the dough is fairly firm (about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes in total). Let the ghosts cool (they can get quite hot).

4. Use a fine-point permanent black marker to draw on eyes and a mouth.

5. Then decorate your Spooky Woods with your fun, homemade salt dough creations. We added in our witch and skeleton figurines. This scene looks much better than just having those two store bought decorations just floating there. Now I'm wishing I had made a cauldron. But that can be added in next year.

Spooky Trees

As I was web searching for both craft ideas to do with the kids and Holiday decorations, I came across this great little project, Salt Dough Ghosts. This is actually a two part craft as you have the trees and the ghosts. We haven't made the ghosts yet, not enough salt here, but I had supplies for the trees.

Supplies:
scissors
pebbles or rocks to give weight
brown lunch bags or shopping bag cut in half

I made the first tree to see how easy of a project this was. My daughter (3 yrs old) watched and was able to make her own with little instruction. I would rate this as a level 1 difficulty, it really is that simple.

The first step would be placing the pebbles into the bag and start twisting, this will be your trunk. About half the way up, you'll cut sections out of individual branches. Just a quick snip down half way about two or three times depending on how many large branches you'd like.

Once you have two or three cuts, you'll again start to twist these, they will become the large branches. About an inch away from the end make two more additional cuts for the smaller branches and twist those as well.

Once that is done, re-twist the sections that may have loosened up a bit and we're done! Yep that's it. We went on to make a total of three trees for our table top. Later on we hope to be able to make the Salt Dough Ghosts, lay out a few artificial fall leaves and even place a few candy pumpkins around to make our Spooky Forest feel more occupied. When finished, I'll be sure to post completed pictures. Until then, please enjoy this shot.

Happy Fall Days!

~Clover