Halloween craft is fun for the whole family

H7

By Jennifer Forker
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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ARVADA, Colo. - Here's a quick and inexpensive craft that will bring out the poster-paint Picasso in your kids. It uses objects you'd otherwise trash or recycle, like plastic milk jugs. You may have to spring for some paint.

Courtesy of FamilyFun.com, this craft is a winner for elementary-school-age children. When we started this craft in our front yard, several neighbourhood kids mysteriously appeared and wanted to join us.

Since we only had three milk jugs, we hustled and found a few other plastic containers. We learned a valuable lesson: Don't do that. Stick with the four-litre-size milk jugs because their thin plastic can be sliced at the end of the project for inserting the precious nose pieces. With the thicker plastic jugs, we had to tape on the monsters' noses.

Yes, these are critical details.

More important are the craft instructions. Read on for those.

Supplies you'll need

* plastic milk jug

* 2 milk caps

* 470-ml plastic container, such as deli or butter tub

* duct tape

* Acrylic paints in various colors

* Paintbrushes

* Tinfoil

* Pushpins

* Thin cardboard or poster board

* craft knife

Assembly:

* Turn over a clean milk jug and rest it in a plastic container (for ease in standing upright, and for making the Jug head’s thick neck). Attach the jug to the container with duct tape (preferably on the sides and in back), then coat the jug, tape and deli container with acrylic paint.

(You don’t even have to remove paper labels: The paint will conceal it all.)

* When the head is dry, paint on the face, e.g., bloodshot eyes, a menacing grin, cool scars and a head of greasy black hair.

* To create bolts in the sides of the monster’s neck, cover milk caps with tinfoil and attach them with pushpins. (our pins weren’t long enough, so we had to reinforce these with duct tape.)

* cut a nose out of thin cardboard or poster board and slip it through a slit cut in the monster’s face. (if using a container made from thicker plastic, you may need to tape on the nose.)