IT'S FALL Y'ALL!
And you know what that means?
Only my FAVORITE time of the year!
HALLOWEEN!
Every year our family painstakingly plans out our decoration blueprint for the yard, decorates the interior of the home and spends hours decorating our pumpkins (sometimes not too happily as we bite off more than we can chew) but, this year I decided to make this awesome time of the year a little more fun!
As a stay at home mom of three kids (14 yrs, 7 yrs, & 2 yrs old) & a military wife, I am constantly trying to find ways to keep them entertained and have fun together as a family instead of us going to separate rooms with whatever device. This becomes especially hard during deployments but thankfully this year, the hubby is home so we are taking full advantage while we can!
I have been scanning through Facebook, Instagram & Pinterest to find some fun and easy crafts for the kids but as I'm sure many of you know, I have to put my own spin on things and encourage the kids to do the same. Normal/fitting in is boring! Have fun with anything I post and I beg that each and everyone of you get the creative juices flowing and ENJOY your crafting time!
I have been trying to do at least two small crafts a week with the kids this month and they have enjoyed them all so much that I hope to continue this trend through fall, Thanksgiving & Christmas. But for now we will focus on Halloween crafts. I will be posting all of the fun crafts we have done and will do so, keep checking in for new blog posts!
BUT today, I am going to post my how-to for the first craft stick (aka popsicle stick) house that I've done!
*NOTE: It's super fun but also time consuming and I built this over a few days so have patience with this one. This one is more for adults but the kids can get involved as you see fit & depending on ages!
DIY CRAFT STICKS HAUNTED HALLOWEEN HOUSE INSTRUCTIONS
SUPPLIES:
A lot of craft sticks (details below)
Paint (colors of your choosing)
Diagonal Cutters
Elmer's Glue
Hot Glue Gun/Glue Sticks
Battery Operated Tealight
Fake Spider Webbing
Decorations of your choice
When I first saw a cute little haunted house like this on Pinterest, it came with no instructions, no dimensions of any kind. I had to just guess on all of it but, once I started building it I saw why. I believe that the whole purpose of this project is to do your own thing! If it's crooked, that's cool. If it's lopsided, awesome. If the walls don't line up, the windows are wonky and the painting is shotty at best...EVEN BETTER! It's a HAUNTED HOUSE. It's should be crazy and spooky!
I had a lot of craft stick crafts in mind for this season and the next so I did my research and settled on Michael's craft store to purchase my sticks. I'm talking $10 tops for hundreds of them in a nice big box! Plus, I have to give it to Michael's, if you sign up (free of course) for their app (also free) you get coupons every week! Trust me, they help. Now, as a military wife I can get a military discount from there BUT the coupons highly outweigh the discount so nix it on your next visit. You can even use the app to search for the item you want and find which isle it is on! Awesome job Michael's!
Now, I have to say the first step to starting this project is to plan out your FIRST wall. I suggest that be the front wall. Line your sticks up however long and tall you would like for your house to be and carefully draw where your window and door will go. I used a pen to roughly draw out the window and door but you can use a pencil, marker, whatever you like.
Once you have your rough draft in mind, you can begin to cut the pieces to allow for your door and window. This is where it gets tricky (and also fun!). I tried all kinds of tricks to cut my sticks including scouring it with an exacto-knife then breaking, scissors, knives, etc. and all of them sucked...big time. I began to get so frustrated that I did a Google search to find the best way to cut these dern little things and BEHOLD! The diagonal cutters!
My husband happened to be home at the time and has all kinds of tools so I shouted across the house, "DO YOU HAVE ANY.....UM.....WHAT ARE THESE THINGS CALLED....DIAGONAL CUTTERS?!" And bam, he actually did. What a genius idea btw!!! Worked like a charm! Well, except for the poor kids sitting across from me at the table doing homework as I began to cut and pieces went flying off in all different directions! I learned FINALLY at the end of the craft to hold each end to stop the flying wooden pieces of death. (JK...they weren't THAT bad)
After you get that first wall figured out, do the same for the back wall. You can put a window in like I did or don't, up to you! Just try to measure it the same. Then the side walls. Do your own thing! Don't follow mine (unless you really want to...I messed up a lot!) and have fun.
Next step is GLUE GLUE GLUE! Now, I find the Elmer's Glue (either school glue or glue all) is the best at cementing the wooden sticks together for the walls. Place several sticks on the back with glue to make sure those walls aren't going to crumble down like the three little pigs!
Once you have all of your walls glued together, use one of your front walls to measure how long the roof should be. Go about two/three sticks wider on each side for your roof. Can't stress this enough, use your imagination! Create two separate roof panels that you can glue in a peak when done.
I suggest you let the Elmer's glue do it's 'thang over night. Don't rush this process or it will all fall apart on you. Put it to the side, have a nice dinner or movie (or both!) and come back tomorrow.
Once everything is dry and solid, you can begin to build your house.
Sorry Elmer's....this one is for the hot glue gun!
Hot glue is way better at quickly binding the corners of your building together. Start with one corner at a time. Glue the crap out of that thing!! But on the inside of course. A haunted house would look cool with all of the seeping glue and stringy web looking stuff from the hot glue on the outside but this is good practice for later projects!
Once you have your four walls up and glued, then just simply figure out where your roof will join. Do one side at a time & join at the top in the middle. Trust me, it's easier than you are thinking.
One of the last steps to do for the craft sticks is (if you wish) to cut & glue the window/door trim and a little something extra to the roof. If you notice in my unfinished pictures, I attempted to close in the triangular gap between the roof and the walls by cutting more pieces diagonally and gluing them in place. This got tedious and very hard so I stopped. (I found out later how to fix that issue but that's for another post and another house!)
And voila! There's your haunted house!
Your final steps are to paint it all of course (first). Let that dry (at least a day depending on which paints you use...I won't give a recommendation on the paints because I used two different kinds (different colors too) but I suggest acrylic watered down a bit to make it easier to spread.
Finally, the FUN part! Decorations!!!
All of the decorations on my house came from the Dollar Tree! Yep! The everything's $1 store! So many people tend to forget them but they have the best cheap, fun stuff! (Um...even wine glasses!)
For my vampire: he was cut out from treat bags (set of four!). The skulls, spider & bats: rings! (bag of lord...however many!) The spider webs..well...duh. And the purple bat tray...yep...Dollar Tree! Even the battery operated tea lights (2 for $1). The only thing not used in the decorations was the orange puffing which I had bought from Michael's and hadn't used yet.
My favorite part of all was turning the lights off and watching the flickering candle light come through everything! (FYI: DON'T GLUE THE HOUSE DOWN! YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO TURN THE LIGHT ON AND OFF!)
After all is said and done, BE PROUD OF WHAT YOU MADE!
Happy Haunting & HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
{Sarah B}
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