[Crafty Monday] Peek-a-BOO! Haunted Houses

October 12, 2009 · Filed under crafts & things to make, family fun, holidays · Tagged easy crafts for kids, Halloween crafts, lift-the-flap craft

This lift-the-flap haunted house craft is something I used to do all the time when I was a kid. I don’t know if I learned at school, or I made up on my own,  but it’s a fun and easy craft.

You’ll need:

• Construction paper
• Glue
• Scissors
• X-acto knife, or small sharp scissors
• Markers/crayons/colored pencils
• Stickers (optional)
  

Step 1:

Draw freehand, or use a template to cut out the outline of a haunted house. I printed this one out, then drew it freehand on a piece of black construction paper

Step 2:

Take a white or silver colored pencil and draw some windows in the house

Step 3:

For some windows, use an x-acto knife or small sharp scissors and cut out three sides (for the lift-the-flap windows). If you want to have open windows too, just cut out the whole outline. Once you have cut out the windows/doors, flip the house over (so you don’t see your pencil lines) and glue the house onto another sheet of construction paper. Orange makes it spookier, but white makes it easier to draw the crazy characters who will appear behind the flaps.

Step 4:

Draw your scary creatures behind the windows and doors and decorate the rest of the page too. We used a combination of drawing and stickers. I resisted getting out the glitter.

This is a fun book for learning how to draw goofy monsters:

Here’s Rosa making her haunted house:

Creak creak creak creak! Go away!

Of course, this same idea can be adapted for other designs: a gingerbread house, a cute country cottage, an apartment building in the big city. I have in mind the idea to make a little woodland animal/fairy cottage scene for Elena.

Elena, meanwhile, was not so much into spooky Halloween scenes. She was too busy making portraits of her Little People (of the vintage Fisher Price variety). How cute is this?

One of the easiest ways to get crafty with the kids is to take a big roll of white paper (I get mine at the teacher supply store), tape it to the top of the table and let them draw whatever they want.  They love it.

When the trees and sun are happy, the whole world is happy.