Because I love encouraging my kids to be creative, Halloween becomes another excuse to get them to make some great artwork that I will invariably want to put on display for the rest of the year. Best of all, there is more than enough in the way of recycled materials to use as raw materials for their artwork.

Here are my kids’ five of my favorite Halloween activities this year:

Green Monster Mask

Make a scary green monster mask from bits and scraps left lying around the house. In addition to what is described in the how-to, I like the idea of using an egg carton for scary teeth. Go here for complete details.

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The November edition, which features Halloween and Thanksgiving crafts is full of clever and cute crafts for kids of all ages (including my toilet paper roll treat boxes for Halloween on page 36) and many of them use items that would normally get tossed away. There’s a haunted house made from a milk carton, luminaries made from tin cans, jar lights made from assorted glass jars, a treat box made from a cereal box, candy holders made from Pringle’s cans, cute treat holders made from plastic jello cups and cheese boxes and more. I didn’t see any CD ideas though (mine keep piling up, haven’t found an idea that suits me yet).

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