Halloween is a great opportunity to get kids involved in arts and crafts and with half term on the way there’s no better time to start thinking of some fun things to make!
How to make a Halloween Suncatcher
These Halloween suncatchers are a great craft that appeal to kids of all ages. While younger kids will enjoy the sensory experience of using sticky back plastic, older kids often create neater patterns or pictures. This craft can pretty much be adapted infinitely to your child’s interests, once you’ve mastered the basics why not make a whole window-ful for a brighter start to a darker part of the year?
Materials
- Black Card
- Sticky Back Plastic
- Cellophane (you can use tissue paper but cellophane gives a much brighter craft)
- Scissors
- Needle and thread
- Washi tape / sellotape
How to make your Halloween Suncatcher
First cut out the shape of the picture you want to make. Here I’ve made a ghost but pumpkins, bats, witches and spiders would work brilliantly too.
Starting by making a cut in the middle of your shape, cut out the middle of your sunctcher so that you are left with about a 1cm frame. Using the card that you have cut out, now cut any features such as eyes and a mouth. Older kids will be able to do the cutting themselves while younger children may need a hand or need you to do it for them.
Take a piece of sticky back plastic larger than your suncatcher, roll it out on a table and secure down. Sticky back plastic has a tendency to stick to anything (especially its self!) so I secure down each edge using some washi tape. As well as washi tape being easier for kids to see than traditional selotape in my experience it is also far less likely to damage anything.
First place any features such as eyes onto your suncatcher, this ensures that when it is finished you will be able to see these clearly.
Cut the selotape into pieces and place on the sticky back plastic. This can also be used as a way to reinforce learning about mixing colours for example using red and yellow cellophane to make orange for a pumpkin.
When you are happy with your spooky suncatcher, stick another piece of sticky back plastic onto the back of it, holding all the cellophane in place. Cut around the suncatchers outline and your Halloween suncatcher is now ready to be hung in the window, just make a simple loop for it with a needle and thread.
More Halloween crafts for kids
If you’d like some more inspiration for Halloween crafts and activities to do with your children why not try these out?
Zing Zing Tree has a great tutorial for making some spooky Halloween bunting from egg boxes.
Our stained glass suncatchers are great fun to make, how about trying bats and monsters?!
These handprint spiders from Daisies and Pie are a great craft that younger kids will love. Make sure you keep some wipes nearby for any mess!
These tissue paper ghosts from The Purple Pumpkin Blog are super thrifty to make and would look great if you made a lot of them to hang together.
Have you tried resist art? These glue resist pumpkins from Mum In The Madhouse are a fantastic project for kids of all ages to try.
This is our very first post from our new guest blogger Kate Williams, author of Crafts on Sea. She shows us how to make a very spooky Halloween Suncatcher. Booohooo, Happy Halloween!
