Paper Plate Pumpkin

Trevor and I participated in a run last weekend called SoFitCity. It's a friendly competition between all the cities in our county to see which city can get the most participants out running and having fun. It's sponsored by the local hospitals and benefits our county library, so it was a win all-around.

Because Trevor had been very sick just a few days before the run (and because crafting and blogging do not keep me in the best shape), we did the Family Fun Mile rather than the 5K Trevor originally wanted to do. It was a good decision. Both of us were able to finish strong and feel good about it. Here's Trevor crossing the finish line.    

After the run, we headed over to the Kids Zone to check out their many games, crafts and other activities. We did a few crafts together, then Trevor headed into a bounce house while I moved on to a nearby craft table. He bounced and I made this:  

 

It's a paper plate, colored with an orange crayon.  I cut out the face and stapled a toilet paper tube to the top. Simple + fast + inexpensive + non-messy = perfect for an event with hundreds of kids.  

When I brought it home, I started thinking about how I would have done it differently if it were a project for just one child (vs. 400+), near a sink (vs. in a mall parking lot), with plenty of drying time (vs. no location to set projects to dry). Here's what I came up with: 

Materials: paper plate, black construction paper, toilet paper roll, orange paint, green paint, scissors, tape, stapler. 

Begin by cutting out a face from the paper plate. Use the scraps to cut white fangs and set them aside. Paint the paper plate orange and the toilet paper roll green. When they are dry, tape the fangs to the back side of the paper plate, then tape construction paper over that. Staple the toilet paper roll to the top of the pumpkin.  

Another fun Halloween project!