Halloween Craft's

Spooky Spider Gloves

By Julie McGuffee, Hands On Crafts for Kids: 20-Minute Crafts

Materials:

black fabric gardening gloves
black medium-tip marker
eight 10" chenille stems, any color
craft glue
3" plastic-foam ball
scissors
straight pin
white soft-foam sheeting

Steps:

1. Place one chenille stem inside each finger of both gloves (figure A).

2. Trim ends of each chenille stem even with bottom of cuffs.

3. Pull cuff of one glove around plastic-foam ball (figure B), keeping the four chenille stems together underneath the ball.

4. Pull cuff of remaining glove over cuff of the glove containing the ball, keeping the eight chenille stems together underneath the ball. Make certain both thumbs are on the same side of the ball (figure C).

5. Overlap thumbs in front of the cuff; glue together, then to cuff. Pin thumbs in place. Let glue dry, then remove straight pin.

6. To make the eyes, cut two nickel-sized circles from soft-foam. Draw pupils on lower half of eyes with a marker.

7. Glue eyes to cuff above thumbs.

8. To shape the spider's legs, bend chenille stems inside fingers of gloves.

Shrunken Heads

Materials:

• Apples


• Whole Cloves


• A few grains of rice


• 1/2 C lemon juice


• 2 tsp. salt

Directions:

Peel a large apple and coat with mixture of lemon juice and 2 teaspoons of salt to prevent browning. With a potato peeler or small knife carve out eye sockets, a nose, mouth and ears. Don't worry about carving small details as they will be lost when the apple dries. Go for the big features and nature will take care of the rest.

Use whole cloves for eyes and raw rice grains for teeth (the faces also come out looking great without these extra props, just carve and let dry if you want to keep it simple).

Sit apples on a wire rack in a warm, dry place for about 2 weeks. Shape the faces as they shrink and harden. You can speed the drying process a little by drying in an oven set at the lowest temperature. However, the process will still take several days.