What You Need to Make a Glitter and Glue Spiderweb for Halloween

• Plastic Wrap or Wax Paper
• Marker
• Glue
• Glitter

Halloween Spider Web Craft Supplies

Lay out a piece of plastic wrap and draw a spider web on it with your marker. See, it already feels Halloween-y, doesn't it?

Trace the lines of your spider web with white glue. You want the lines of glue to be a little thick so that your web doesn't break later.

Cover your glue spider web with glitter. Silver works great!

Let your spider web dry and then shake off the excess glitter. (We put ours back in the bottle to reuse for other kids crafts.)

This is the best part of this Halloween craft! Carefully peel the whole thing off of the plastic wrap.

Seriously, how cool is that?!

By the way, if you use the Press-n-Seal stuff, you can put it up on a window ahead of time to draw out a spider web that will fit the space.

Beginner’s Guide to Making a Simple Origami Butterfly

Origami doesn’t have to be difficult and with just a little bit of practice, your kids will be experts in no time. Every piece of origami, from a simple flower to a complex dragon, is created in the same way – with just a few folds in the right places.

Origami is a great craft for children of all ages to enjoy. There is no glue, scissors or small pieces involved, which makes it perfect for even the littlest little ones to have a go. Because you only need one piece of card per project, origami is also one of the cheapest craft projects out there and is great to keep kids amused on a journey without the worry of losing pieces of leaving parts behind.

These simple origami butterflies can be used in loads of different ways – use them instead of ribbons to decorate presents, hang them from the ceiling for a pretty summer decoration or simply hand them out as cheap yet thoughtful homemade gifts.

What You’ll Need

1 square piece of thin colored card or paper

Origami Butterfly Directions

Origami Butterfly - Step 1

1. Cut out a square from a piece of colored card or paper – the bigger the piece, the easier the folds are to make. 4”x4” is a good size for a small butterfly, 6”x6” for a medium butterfly and 10”x10” for a large butterfly. These sizes are just guides – any square piece will work. Don’t go any smaller than 3”x3”, or you’ll really struggle to make the folds.

Step 2

2. Fold the square in half horizontally then unfold. Fold the square in half vertically then unfold.

Step 3

3. Turn the square over and fold along one of the diagonals then unfold. Fold along the other diagonal then unfold.

Step 4a

Step 4b

Step 4c

4. Holding two opposite sides, push the centers together until they meet in the middle of the square. Flatten the sides above and below so you’re left with a flat triangle with several layers.

Step 5

5. Take the bottom corners of the top layer triangle and fold them to meet at the top corner.

Step 6

6. Turn the card over and fold the top of the triangle backwards over the bottom edge, so the tip sticks out a little bit. Make sure you don’t flatten the raised edges in the process – these will form part of the butterfly’s wings and make it look more real.

Step 7

7. Tuck the tip that sticks out over the side and turn the card over. Fold in half and you’re done.

How to Make a Shark Cake

I made this shark birthday cake for my daughter waaayyyy back in 2009 – and when I realized it was Shark Week this week, I remembered that I had never posted about it! This cake is fairly easy to make, but requires one specialized pan (that you will be able to use for a ton of other occasions) – a large cupcake cake pan:

Large Cupcake Cake Pan

For evidence as to how versatile this cake pan is, you can see this black cat Halloween cake I made for my other daughter’s birthday from the same cupcake cake mold:

Halloween Party Cat Cake

How to Make a Shark Cake

You’ll need:

• 1 box of cake mix (or your favorite cake recipe)
• 2 cans of frosting (or your favorite white frosting recipe)
• Blue and green food coloring
• 1 bag of chocolate chips
• Mini marshmallows for the teeth
• Black decorator’s icing

First, bake your cake in both the top and bottom parts of the cupcake cake pan, and allow to cool completely. Plus, make your white frosting if you aren’t using store bought frosting.

Attach the top of the cupcake to the bottom of the cupcake with a layer of frosting, the same way you would make a regular double-layer cake.

Set aside a small portion of the frosting to make the eyes, and dye the rest of the frosting with the blue and green food coloring to make the light turquoise blue color.

Frost the entire cupcake – top and bottom – with the turquoise frosting.

Now put the cake in the fridge for a couple of hours to get the frosting to set up well.

Take the cake out and use some Saran/cling wrap to press down on all parts of the frosting all over the cake. This will give the frosting that glossy smooth finish to look like shark skin – this was my way of trying to get the look of fondant without messing with fondant!

Add the green food coloring to a tiny bit of frosting to make the eyes.

Now you will need to ‘draw’ the shark face – use the photos above and below as a guide for placement

• Use white frosting to make two half circles for eyes.
• Use green frosting to make the eye iris
• Use black icing to make the eye pupils, mean looking eyebrows, nostril holes, and the large “triangle” for the mouth:

Here's the shark cake mouth

To make the shark teeth, cut up mini marshmallows diagonally to make the pointy tooth shapes, like this, and then place them around the mouth as shown.

Cutting mini marshmallows to make shark teeth

To make the shark fin, melt some chocolate chips in the microwave – usually just 1-2 minutes will do the trick. Put it into a plastic sandwich or ziplock bag and cut off a corner to make a simple cake decorating bag. Pipe the melted chocolate into the shape of a shark fin onto a piece of foil. Let it cool completely until it is solid again.

Making the shark fin out of melted chocolate

Since the fin is a bit fragile, you’ll want to pre-cut a slit in the cake and push the fin into the opening:

Attaching the fin to the shark cake

I found that this held the fin well, but looked a little sloppy. So I simply covered up the mess with a line of more black icing around the base of the fin.

And that’s it!

Related Pages: Owl Crafts for Kids, Owl Coloring Pages

What You Need to Make a Paper Cutout Owl

• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Marker

Totally simple craft supplies for your owl cut out.

Start by cutting out a branch shape and gluing it to your blue background. This is where your cutout owls will be hanging out.

I just freehand drew some leaf shapes onto green construction paper and let my little one practice with her safety scissors.

Draw and cut out an egg shape for the owl's body. Glue it onto the branch.

Make a sort of a bean shape to cut out and glue on for the owl's face. We cut some triangles for ears, too.

Don't forget to draw eyes and a beak. Of course, ours also have eyelashes because they are apparently girl owls.

The little one didn't feel so confident with this more complex shape, so I cut out our owls' wings.

Glue the wings in place. I traced around ours with the marker so they were a little more defined.

Who? Who? Who is sitting on that branch?!

Such a cute craft, and everyone who sees it says, "Awww!"

I came across this awesome firefly craft on Pinterest and traced it back to the awesome creator of Apartment Therapy.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t more excited about what I planned to do with our plastic eggs after Easter than I was about filling them with candy for the big day.  I made a couple of modifications just based on the craft supplies that I happened to have available.  We took one to preschool for my daughter’s teacher, and she fell in love with it and now wants me to come in to teach all the kids a craft!

Related Page: Bug Coloring Pages

What You Need to Make Fireflies from Plastic Easter Eggs

• One plastic Easter egg
• Two pipe cleaners
• One LED tea light “candle”
• Hot glue and hot glue gun
• Two googly eyes (optional…you could just draw on the eyes)
• About 8″ of tulle
• Marker

Craft supplies to make Easter eggs into fireflies.

Use a pushpin to make three holes on either side of the longer section of the egg. This is where your firefly's legs will be. Then add two more holes at the top of the shorter section for antennas.*

*I found the pushpin didn’t make the holes quite big enough, so I went pack over them with a nail to make them wider.

Cut your pipe cleaners into four even pieces and thread through the holes as shown in the picture to give your firefly craft some legs and antennas.

Glue or draw on eyes, and give your lightning bug a smile with your marker.

Tie a knot in the center of your tulle and then affix it to the top with hot glue to give your bug some wings.

Turn on your tealight and snap it closed inside your firefly's body. It will flicker and glow!

What I Learned the Hard Way:  Your firefly/lightning but will stand up better if you bend each leg one more time to give him some knees!

Butterfly Mobile Craft for Kids

For her birthday, my daughter got a book called 50 Rainy Day Activities (50 Things to Make and Do), and it is full of awesome crafts for kids.  I finally had to give her a stack of sticky notes to go through and mark all the crafts she wanted to do!  Our first one was this butterfly mobile craft.

Related Pages: Butterfly Fairy Coloring Pages, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities and Lesson Plan

What You Need to Make a Butterfly Mobile:

• Paint
• White paper  (ours is on finger paint paper)
• White glue
• Yarn or string of some type
• Glitter or salt
• Drinking straw
• Large bead or button
• Scissors

Craft supplies needed to make a butterfly mobile with kids.

The butterfly mobile instructions called for watered down craft paints, but we decided to do some finger painting instead.

Paint your paper however you like for your butterfly mobile's wings.

While the paint is still wet, sprinkle on some glitter or salt to make your butterfly's wings catch the light.

Once the paint has dried, fold the paper in half (short edges together, with glue sandwiched in between.  This makes it so that both sides are now painted.

Stretch out your bendy straw, and cut it off, just above where it bends. Trim the other end to be the right length for your butterfly's body.

Cut the accordion (bendy) part of the straw vertically down the middle and gently bend the two sides apart. The result is antennas for your butterfly mobile craft.

Feed the yarn or string through the straw, with a bead or button on the bottom end to keep it from coming back through. Glue this body in place on your butterfly.

Once your butterfly mobile is dry, hang it up where ever you want some color!

What I Learned the Hard Way:

It's not even a new lesson at this point.

Our 3D turtles are living in the dining room window.

Now, this 3-D turtle craft is just so darn cute, and it just takes things you probably already have around the house. We got the idea from a book my daughter was given that’s called Animal Things to Make and Do.  There were some really cool crafts in the book, and I imagine you’ll be seeing more of them here.

What You Need to Make a 3-D Paper Turtle Craft:

• Green construction paper
• Some other kind of paper for the shell (we used scrapbooking paper with a picture of grass on it)
• White glue
• Marker
• Scissors
• Something round to trace

Craft supplies for your 3-D paper turtles

Trace your circle to make the shell of your paper turtle.

Trace a smaller circle in the center and divide it into eight sections.

Cut along the straight lines. Add glue to each edge and press it together with the one next to it. This is what makes your paper turtle shell 3D.

Lay your 3-D paper turtle shell onto your green construction paper and outline your turtle's body.

Add glue around the edges and press your shell onto the turtle. This is the trickiest part of the turtle craft, but it ended up being easier than I feared.

Totally adorable craft for kids, right?

Just click on the images below to bring up the full size printable masks. Use our special “Click to Print” button to block the rest of the page and only send the image to your printer.

Printable Dragon Mask

Printable Dragon Mask Coloring Page

Chinese Dragon Mask

Chinese Dragon Mask Coloring Page

You might also like our printable dragon paper craft – it is one of the all-time top crafts on Craft Jr.!

Printable Dragon Paper Craft

How to Make this Paper Dragon

This craft is so easy that a toddler can do it – they aren’t going to color with fancy-schmancy colored pencils or stay within the lines of course… But they can certainly handle it.

Chinese Dragon Paper Puppet

You will need an additional piece of construction paper to create the accordion dragon body, plus wooden kebab skewers to make it into a ‘puppet’, like this.

Printable Dragon Paper Craft

Then simply click the above image to print out the dragon, color, and fold and glue as shown!

More Dragon Coloring Pages

Chinese Dragon Coloring Pages

Cartoon Dragon Coloring Pages

Celtic Dragon Coloring Pages

More Chinese New Year Printables

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Chinese Zodiac Coloring Pages

Printable Chinese Masks