It looks like we’re coming down to the wire; Halloween is fast approaching.
You probably have your children’s costumes lined up, and your cupboard is stocked with treats to hand out to the thundering hordes of ghosts, princesses and ghouls.
What are you going to do about trick or treat bags? A fun project for all your little goblins is to create their own Halloween treat bags. This idea can be adapted for kids of every age, using age appropriate art supplies.
It’s In The Bag
You certainly can’t use a paper shopping bag, and you don’t want to spend a lot on a canvas bag, but check out local dollar stores and craft shops for inexpensive, sturdy bags.
Nonwoven Polypropylene Bags: Similar to those reusable shopping bags that are so popular today. They come in loads of colors. They’re very strong and come in several sizes.
Cloth Bags: Some craft shops have a selection of inexpensive, natural colored cloth or canvas bags. They come in different sizes, with varying lengths of straps.
Sew Your Own: If you know your way around a sewing machine, you could stitch up bags, complete with handles from scraps of fabric.
No-Sew Bags: If you’re handy with scissors and glue, you can use stiff, sturdy felt to make a bag. Use heavy duty glue and maybe add a few hand sewn stitches where the handles attach to the bag.
Choose Your Favorite Embellishments
You certainly aren’t’ going to give a toddler a brush and paint, but they can have all the fun that the big kids have. You can draw some simple shapes on the bag with a marker and let your budding Picasso have at it with crayons or markers. You may want to slip a piece of cardboard inside the bag, to make a flat, unwrinkled surface.
As kids get older, they’re ready to handle paints and brushes. Acrylic paints are great, as they can be thinned with water and dry quickly. Marking pens, both fine tip and broad, are also popular. They also make less mess and require little clean-up. Fluorescent paint and markers are also a great way to add color and extra visibility.
Felt or fabric scraps can be cut into shapes and glued to the bag. Glitter is always a hit with kids, and other small embellishments like spiders or worms can be glued onto the surface.
If you want to give your kids some inspirations on what they can create, just do a search on the internet for Trick Or Treat Bag images. You’ll find zillions of examples to spur their imagination.
Painting a Jack o’Lantern, bat, black cat or other traditional Halloween icons are naturals, but there are lots of other ideas for kids of any age. A ghost, skull and crossbones, sugar skull, monster face or a spider and its web are just a few ideas.
This would also be a fun project for young guests at a Halloween party. You could have an area set up with all the materials to make their own trick or treat bags, and they’d go home with a favor they’re sure to enjoy.
