October DIY "There's nothing else to it, other than just do it!"

Last month we made some DIY things that we wanted to share with you all. Hopefully they inspire ideas for next year!

First off was the DIY Clay Pumpkins!

.Due to a tight budget, we decided to make our own pumpkins this year. So we took out some clay we had and molded our own little pumpkins. They are doll sized and my dolls loved them!

What you will need:
.Orange/green/brown clay
.Toothpicks
.Clay sculpting tools

So you take about 5 inches of orange clay (could be less depending on the size you're going after) and roll it into a round ball. Cut a small piece off of a toothpick and stick it into the top/center of the ball, making sure to leave half of it sticking out. Then take about an inch of green or brown clay and roll/mold it into a small square. Then place it on the toothpick sticking out of the pumpkin. Once you have your pumpkins completed, now begins the carving/sculpting process. Take your clay tools and carve out two eyes, a nose, and a mouth for your pumpkin. Or you can be creative and make something different than your typical jack o lantern design. For example, you can make a heart design or a kitty. Let your imagination run wild!

Here's our pumpkins!
.Clown Pumpkin
.Heart Pumpkin
.Pinnochio Pumpkin

*Pics*

Cardboard Creations:
Do you have empty cardboard boxes in your recycling bin? Well, a lot of those can be utilized to make cardboard cut-out decorations to hang up on your wall or wherever!

What you will need: Cardboard, scissors, paint (acrylic), paint brush (or you can just finger paint), cup of water (for dipping paint brush in), parchment paper (for painting pumpkin on).

I took an empty cereal box and cut out the front and back. Then I traced the outline of a pumpkin and cut it out. After that, I placed it on top of some parchment paper and painted the inside of the cardboard. Orange for the body, green for the stem, and let it dry for a few minutes. Once it was dry, I decorated the pumpkin adding eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Finally, I let the finished product dry and stuck a pin at the top to get it ready to hang up on my wall.

*Pics*

Another great use for cardboard is for making homemade masks! My dolls and I love being creative and instead of buying our Halloween costumes, we decided to create them on our own. You can be more imaginative that way too, and not just limited to choose from what they have at the store. We traced different designs for masks on the cardboard and then cut them out, one by one. You can either color (with crayons,markers, or colored pencils) or paint the mask. We decided to just use our colored pencils. We made an owl, wolfman, ghost, zombie, and pumpkinman mask. We even made a Wimzie mask (from the television show: Wimzie's House)! Then we used a hole puncher to make holes on the sides of the masks so we could put strings through them, that way we could use them to tie around our dolls heads to secure their masks on.

*Pics*

Kirsten was a cowgirl (we put together different clothes we had to give her that southern appeal).

Camille was a cookie, a chocolate chip cookie! Her favorite.

Emily was an owl, although she had a hard time choosing between that and a zombie.

Sophie was a garden, we dressed her up in her flower pajamas and then put on her flower jumper over them. Then we put a flower hairclip in her hair. Her stuffed bunny was a ghost.

Candice was a cute poodle and Carrie was a kitty.

*Pics*

In celebration of Halloween, we decided to make some Halloween games up. One of them was: Pin the nose on the pumpkin!

We used a pumpkin shaped cardboard cut-out we painted and hung up on a wall. Then we cut out different shaped noses and put a small piece of clay behind each one so you could stick it on to the pumpkin. Then we took turns blindfolding each other and trying to pin the nose as close to the center of the pumpkin's face as possible. Some of us were way far off and some of us were really close. Overall it was a fun game to play!

*Pics*

Then we played a game were we blindfolded each other and were given a piece of paper and a pencil. We were trying to draw a pumpkin, while not being able to see what we were drawing. And we had a time limit; once the song that was playing was over, you had to put the pencil down. Our blind pumpkin drawings were very interesting to say the least.

We definitely had a fun-filled, creative Halloween this year!