Halloween is fast approaching and for the first time we’ve got a child who’s vaguely interested in it. Halloween isn’t a big festival where we are and we won’t be trick or treating but each year we decorate a pumpkin and this year’s no different. As fun as carving is, there’s not much input that a toddler can have; he’s not quite strong enough for scooping and his knife skills would be terrifying – and not in a good way! Instead, this year we’ve let him decorate his own pumpkin with this simple tissue paper pumpkin craft for toddlers.
All you’ll need is some tissue paper in a variety of colours, PVA glue, a brush and of course, a pumpkin. In order to minimise mess (and as the colour in the tissue paper can bleed out when wet), I’d recommend taping a plastic bag or plastic wallet on top of the table to make it easy to clean away and stop the PVA from sticking. Alternatively, using a tuff tray surface would work perfectly!
This activity takes about 15-20 minutes and allows your little one to practise lots of fine motor skills; using the brush, picking up single pieces of tissue paper and carefully placing them on. Not only that but there’s lots of chance to talk about the colours used, the shapes of the tissue paper and about halloween itself! Your pumpkin should last far longer than a carved pumpkin and makes a lovely colourful centrepiece. Here’s what we did…
You Will Need:
- Pumpkin
- PVA Glue
- Paint Brush
- Tissue Paper (the more colours the merrier!)
- Scissors
- Document wallet/plastic bag or tuff tray to minimise mess!
Let’s Get Making:
- Cut your tissue paper into pieces roughly 1-2inches in size. For speed, hold all of the sheets together and cut them all as one. Place the cut pieces in a bowl
- Water the PVA down slightly, just enough to make it easy to apply
- Place your pumpkin, the glue and brushes and the tissue paper on an easy clean surface
- Paint a section of the pumpkin with glue
- Stick on the tissue paper
- Paint over the tissue paper with more PVA to help stick it in place, build layers and seal it. Be careful not to turn it into a sticky mess.
- Allow to dry and once dry, display proudly!
5 Comments
This looks so good! Sure my kids would love it too!
It went down a treat in our household – I’m just glad that it stopped him asking to try and carve the thing!!
It looks so cool. We actually attempted carving this morning- he was not too bad at the scooping until he leaned too far to the side and fell off the chair cutting his lip open! I think we will try this one instead next year…
Oh no!! I daren’t try the carving, and he doesn’t like the feel of the seeds etc on the inside so that ruled out him helping pretty early on! This was much safer, although I’d recommend keeping it on a plate as the tissue paper is lethal!
[…] it is harder to find simper crafts for toddlers, so this tissue paper pumpkin from Devon Mama is a great […]