Stuffed Pumpkin Project

Halloween is in just a couple of days and I wanted to get in one more Halloween craft in with the boys before we start making their class treats and snacks. I wanted it to be simple and easy, something they both could do and enjoy. Along with that I wanted to use items we already had around the house, a cost free fun project. So we came up with "Stuffed Pumpkins" and they were a hit!

Our supplies: Brown roll of packing paper, newspaper, orange paint, scissors, paintbrushes and a stapler.

First I cut out a big piece of brown packing paper long enough so I could fold it in half to make a front and a back side to staple together once we started to stuff them. Then "free handed" a giant pumpkin. It doesn't have to be perfect, pumpkins are never perfectly round anyways right?

Next I let the boys paint their pumpkin, it didn't matter if they went out of the lines, we were going to cut them out anyway.

Then I helped/let them draw a pumpkin face. My 5 year old wanted a scary mouth with nice eyes and mean eyebrows.

After the paint dried we cut the pumpkin out which ends up being two pieces of paper back to back the same size (see the two pieces he is stapling here). Not perfectly cut because he still needed to be stapled and stuffed. We stapled around over half the pumpkin before we even started to stuff him so that the newspaper wouldn't fall out. I let my 5 year old use the kids style stapler, he was really cautious and loved being able to staple to his hearts desire.

Last they stuffed their pumpkins with the crumpled newspaper!! As they got fuller and fuller we stapled more and more around the edges to close them up. Then when they were stuffed and stapled I trimmed the edges off with scissors to give them a cleaner look.

Here they are with their finished Stuffed Pumpkins!!! One for each of them and the little one for their baby sister, so sweet.