A Fun Fall Craft for Kids – Colorful Paper-Covered Pumpkins

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It’s time to make a fun fall craft with your kids!

My kids love to decorate for the different holidays and seasons. Since I don’t like to spend a lot of money on items that either the kids or the dog will destroy, I prefer to make my own decorations. This year, I saw students at school make some very cute pumpkins, so I adapted this project into a fun fall craft that families can create at home.

First, find a plastic bag.

I used plastic grocery bags, but these turned out to create rather large pumpkins. If you want to occupy your children for a long time, perhaps you want something this size. If you don’t want them to run out of interest in this project, I would suggest using a smaller plastic bag!

Next, stuff the bag with crumpled up newspaper.

My kids are very talented at crumpling the newspaper. When your bag is full, tie the handles on the top of the bag. Then wrap the handles together to form a stem shape. I used masking tape because I already had some, but if you have more decorative tape, feel free to use that instead. Then I tied some yarn around the pumpkin to form some ridges. If you don’t feel like doing this step, just skip the yarn and you will have a round pumpkin instead.

Glue newspaper strips to cover the pumpkin.

We ripped newspaper into long strips. If you have Mod Podge on hand, go ahead and use that. It was raining the day I started my project, so I wasn’t about to drive to a craft store. Instead, I mixed a bottle of regular white school glue with some water and shook it all up in a mason jar. I used about 2 cups of glue with a half cup of water, but you can play around with those ratios to get the consistency you want. We glued the newspaper strips to the pumpkins to completely cover the bag, but we left the stem uncovered. Apply the glue liberally to get the newspaper to stick tightly to the pumpkin.

After the glue dries, add colored paper to your pumpkin.

I had construction paper on hand, so that’s what I used. I cut the paper into small squares. I would recommend using slighter larger squares, though, because it took a rather long time to cover our large pumpkins with small squares. Since this was a fall craft, I used leaf colors of red, orange, and yellow. You can choose whatever colors you love. As an alternative, you could paint the newspaper instead of covering it in paper. 

Finally, add some personal touches to your pumpkin.

To add some pizzazz to your pumpkin, add some glitter! For smaller kids, let them add stickers. If you want to turn your pumpkin into a jack-o’-lantern, add some eyes and a mouth with paint or glue on cut-out pieces of paper. If your kids have ideas, let them run wild. Since this is an inexpensive craft, I didn’t feel worried about how they would turn out.

I hope you enjoy making this fun fall craft! These pumpkins occupied my kids on a cold, rainy day and now we have some beautiful decorations. Win-win!

A Fun Fall Craft for Kids - Colorful Paper-Covered Pumpkins

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