Witches' Brew

My Halloween display is done!

I've had this idea "brewing" for awhile (ha!) but it wasn't until recently that I figured out how to pull it together. Once I realized puffy paint would be the prefect brew, it took off from there. I had the kids paint with puffy paint (shaving cream mixed with Elmer's glue, with food coloring added in) on a half sheet of white paper. I drew an oval on the paper first, but that wasn't really necessary.

The kids picked one color (purple, orange or green) and filled in the oval. I told them to put it on really thick and not spread it around too much. Then they added glitter that matched.

The glitter was in little shakers that only let out a tiny amount at a time, which was exactly what we needed. We only wanted to add a little bit of sparkle. The puffy paint ended up drying darker, which I loved. I cut them out to resemble liquid bubbling up and over a pot, and then glued each one to the top of a cauldron. The kids added two black circles to the bottom of the cauldron for legs.

I'm not gonna lie to you. Cutting out puffy paint was a little tricky. Sometimes the puffy parts would pop so I had to be careful. And then gluing it to the pot was also difficult because I couldn't push down or I would leave fingerprints. I ended up using very little glue and just put tape on the back to hold it in place. I asked each child separately (so I would have no copy cats) what is in their brew and typed it up and stuck it to the front of the pot. Then I displayed them in the hallway with a bunch of circles for bubbles. I also decided to display our witch legs above the cauldrons. We make these every year (find out how here!), but this year we made a much smaller version. Still totally cute, though!

What were some of our ingredients, you might ask?

A lot of animal body parts, like frog legs and tips of claws and heads of snakes. And we had some creepy crawlies, like spiders and bugs. We also had eyeballs ("from a person") and rotten eggs and poison ivy. Oh, and butter! Can't forget the butter! Butter makes everything taste better!

Wickedly Cute Witches

Very often I have an art project planned and at the last minute I'll think of a better way, a more fun way, or a cuter way to do it. And then I'm scrambling that morning to get it ready. That's what happened today. I used this coloring sheet as my template for a witch:

I enlarged it a bit, then traced all the pieces onto construction paper and cut them out. I changed the face of the witch because I didn't really like the one in the picture. I put together my example for the kids, using yarn for hair.

It definitely looked like a witch, but it wasn't cute enough and it was a little boring. They would all look too much alike. So this morning it dawned on me to use a hand print for the witch head! I tried it a couple times and, although not perfect, I really liked it! So I painted the kids' hands and thumbs green, and painted their fingers black. I didn't paint their index finger because it would get in the way of the cape.

To make the print, they kept their fingers together, but put their thumb out as far as possible. When dry and cut out, the kids glued a hat on it and added the other pieces to complete their witch. The broom went on last. They glued on a colored wiggle eye and drew in a mouth.

OK, so the nose might be a bit long, and the cape doesn't quite fit right because there is no neck. But I thought they were much cuter than my example!

Some hand prints seemed to work better than others.

But they are all darling! I hung them in the hall with the words "Wickedly Cute."

I would have loved to have used pictures of the kids for the faces, but I only have two girls in my class. I wasn't sure how the boys would feel about being witches!

Another Witch Craft

Last week I shared with you our adorable witch legs. Today, we made witch faces! I copied this idea from I {Heart} Crafty Things. Please go there for the tutorial. But I did do a few things differently. Things I wish I hadn't. I should have just copied Rachel's craft completely. Oh well, live and learn. I thought it would be fun if the kids painted the witch faces instead of using colored construction paper. So last week they painted a white piece of paper. They could either use yellow and blue paint to make green, or blue and red paint to make purple.

Well, the green turned out so gross. No matter how much yellow we added. So then I decided to let them mix green paint with yellow paint. Much better.

They spread it out as much as they could and we let them dry. I also flattened them for a few days. Then I cut off one section to make the nose for them. I put the noses aside for later. With the remaining piece of paper, they drew a circle on the back and cut it out.

Then they glued on the hair, of which I had about 20 times too much.

See Rachel's blog to find out the genius way to make the hair! After the kids finished, I added the noses, the same way Rachel did. If the kids cut small faces, I just made their noses a bit smaller. These turned out really cute. I love all the expressions on the faces! (My camera's settings were all messed up for this and I didn't have time to figure it out. I did the best I could, but please excuse the poor photo quality!)

Next time I will just use construction paper, because the mixing of the paint didn't really work. The purple ended up drying as reds and blues and it made the witches look downright frightening!

But the kids enjoyed making them and love to see them on the wall, so I guess it's not so bad.

Witch Legs Craft

I saw this SUPER CUTE craft on flickr by artsy_T. I think I ended up there from a google search awhile ago. Please check them out. They will make you smile! Her 5th grade class made them, but I knew I'd be able to do it with my 4-year-olds. I think her kids cut everything themselves, so to simplify it I cut out the legs, shoes and skirts. I gave the kids the option of cutting their own skirts and many wanted to, but when it came time to make the craft, they just used my pre-cut skirts. The skirts I cut free-hand, making a few different ones. And the shoes I drew myself. I was planning on making a few, but ended up just using one kind. For the tights, I used a paper cutter and made 2-inch strips from neon paper. And then I took a few of those strips and cut them into 1/2-inch strips for the stripes. The kids first glued the stripes onto the tights.

Then they glued them to a big piece of construction paper, after drawing a black line across the page to separate the wall from the floor. And then they glued on the shoes.

Finally they glued on the skirt.

If it stuck up over the top of the page, which most did, I just trimmed it off. To finish the project, they could draw a mouse hole and a spider coming down from a thread of silk. I wasn't planning on having them do this, but artsy_T's had them and it was so darn cute. Her kids also used lace to trim their skirts and shoes, but I didn't have any. I think they still look completely adorable and couldn't resist taking a picture of each and every one for you! Don't worry, I had a very small class today.

 (See the "invisible spider" above?)

Here they are displayed outside our classroom door.

Don't you just love them?