DIY: Creepy Crawly Halloween Wreath

I just love Halloween!

Pretty much as soon as October hits,

 you can bet your bottom that I am scouring the house looking for 

something to spray pain gold or black.

Fall DIY's make me so happy because they give me good reason to 

celebrate the creepy and weird.

As I was cleaning out the boys room the other day,

we landed on a bin of forgotten plastic animals, insects, and dinos.

The boy and I decided that he's outgrown playing with these and we were about to 

dump them all in the donation bin when the DIY light bulb went off.

I pulled out all of the creepy crawly snakes and spiders and set them aside.

We also decided to keep two special dinos 

that were destined for a new paint job as well.

So here is what you will need:

Enough plastic toys to cover your wreath

black spray paint

hot glue gun and glue

Rubbing alcohol

Step One:

First I gave all the plastic toys a good rub down with 

a clean rag and alcohol. 

 I had to remove all those grubby finger prints from years of play.

Then I wrapped the snakes around the wreath and began to glue them down.

I glued the spiders down to fill in the gaps.

Step Two:

I then gave the wreath a

few light coats of flat black paint,
making sure to let the paint drybetween coats.

And that's it.  Easy, up cycled, and spooky!

Enjoy!

DIY: Haunted House Marble Maze

The boy has been very interested in all things that are maze and puzzle related lately.  I, being quite the puzzler myself, fully support and try to nurture the obsession.  So with all this in mind, and Halloween right around the corner, I thought that we would throw together our own little haunted house maze.  Everything needed to make this maze I pulled from my giant container of "this could be crafted" materials.  The hubs gets on my case about keeping things like shoe boxes and toilet paper tubes, but as any good crafter knows....you never know what kind of supply you are going to need.  So, here we go!

Step 1:

Gather your materials:

a shoe box lid

poster board

glue

scissors

pencil

paintbrush

paint

stickers (decorations are optional)

*tip: I was going to use elmer's glue, but realized that we were out. 

 I opted for super glue, and in the long run was really happy that I chose it 

because of how quickly it dried.

 Step 2:

Cut an opening large enough for your marble to fit through at the beginning of the maze.

With your pencil draw a sketch of your puzzle keeping your end point in mind.

*tip: Keep the size of the marble in mind when 

making your twists and turns and openings.  

Take it from someone who did a lot of erasing.

Step 3:

Cut strips of poster board about 3 inches wide.  

Fold in half and then have another quarter inch lip folded up on either side. 

*tip: Keep your poster board handy.  

I ended up cutting way more strips than I thought I would have needed.

 Step 4:

Glue the internal wall along the paths that you sketched in step 2.

Step 5:

Paint the entire maze.

After your paint is dry, you may decorate however you would like.