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Ghost Town

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Total Time Needed:: Afternoon Or Evening

Haunt your home with a tabletop village inhabited by spooky ghosts and tiny trick-or-treaters.

Materials

Paper lunch bags
Corrugated cardboard
Crayons, markers or tempera paint
Newspaper
Pipe cleaners
Small tree branch

Colored tissue paper
Cotton batting
Poster board
Plastic bottle cap
Small orange beads

Instructions

BUILDINGS: To construct each building, trace around an unopened paper lunch bag onto a piece of corrugated cardboard and then cut out the tracing. Use the same method to make a second cardboard cutout.
Now fit the matching cardboard pieces into the bag and stuff the middle with newspaper. Then use markers or paints to transform the stuffed bag into a store or house (remember that the bottom of the bag will be the roof). Once you've finished making buildings, arrange them on a sheet of poster board.
LANDSCAPING: For an autumn tree, just use a bare trimmed branch. Cut a hole in the poster board to fit the base of the branch and apply glue if needed to hold it in place. (You can even use a craft punch to make miniature tissue-paper leaves to glue onto the tree or pile on the ground.)
Add a plastic bottle cap basket filled with orange-bead pumpkins and a stack of miniature dried-grass hay bales. Then you can haunt the finished village with paper bats, cotton ghosts and tiny trick-or-treaters (see instructions for crafting them below).
WITCHES: For a body, bend a pipe cleaner into an inverted V. Twist a second pipe cleaner around the first to create arms. Glue on tissue-paper boots. For a dress, cut a head hole in a black tissue-paper square, then slip it on and tie it with yarn. Glue on thread for hair and a paper hat.
BATS: Bend a 1-inch length of pipe cleaner into a V, then glue it onto black tissue-paper bat wings. Use floral wire to attach the bat to a building or tree.
SPIRITS: Using the same method described for making a witch, but fashion a body from white pipe cleaners. Glue cotton batting to the body, front and back, until well covered. Use a black marker to draw on eyes and a mouth. Then tuck the finished ghosts between buildings.
GHOSTS: For a trick-or-treater ghost, craft a stick figure from pipe cleaners. Drape a white tissue over the body and then use your fingers to scrunch and shape. Draw on eyes and a mouth.