brown bag jack-o-lantern

While I was out for a walk with Ben last week, I started to think of ways we could make some easy Halloween decorations.  The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Halloween (and autumn too) is usually a pumpkin of sorts.  I'm not really sure why I thought of using the brown bag, but it worked pretty well.  It's toddler friendly (with a little assistance) and completely created with items you can probably find at home.  

Supplies

• brown paper bag
• tissue paper - orange, yellow and green
• raffia or ribbon
• crayons or markers
• glue stick
• scissors

• Draw the face for your jack-o-lantern on the paper bag using crayons or markers.

• Cut out the shapes with scissors.  (I did this step for Ben.)

• Tear small pieces of tissue paper and glue them to the paper with the glue stick.  Try to not cover the face of your jack-o-lantern.

(I thought this would be a hit because Ben loves to shred paper,

but on this day he was occupied with the glue stick.)

Use as much tissue paper as you like.

• Then we put some rocks in a plastic bag and placed them in the bottom of the paper bag.  Just to provide some weight so it doesn't tip over.

• Scrunch and crumple the yellow tissue paper and place it in the bag.
  
  Now you are ready to tie the top...

• Cut around the top of the bag. I found it worked best to cut down vertically around the top several inches of the paper bag - making it easier to tie the top, and have the green tissue stay put and be more noticeable.

• Scrunch and roll some of the green tissue paper, place it in the top of the brown paper bag.

• Last step - securely tie the top of the pumpkin with raffia or ribbon to create the stem.

Happy Halloween!

In my mind, Ben and I were going to make a bunch of these in various sizes and with different faces, but we were lucky to finish one.  :)  That's my excuse for not having a few more pictures of some of the steps.