Haunted House Recycle Craft

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You still have time to make an awesome haunted house recycle craft with the kids! We decided to add an extra bit of spooky to our Halloween this year as the Haunted story theme also tied in nicely with our English unit studies. You do not need to make it for Halloween though, you can use the basic idea to create any house of your choice.

You will need:

Basics:

Boxes
Newspaper
Wood glue
Masking tape
Paint

Add:

Plastic plants
Rocks
Any interesting bits to create a garden
LED Lights

What to do:

Start by getting a general idea of what you want your house to look like. Decide on shape and design. Stack and re-stack until you are satisfied with the general layout. (We changed our ideas several times until we all agreed.)

Mark where you want the windows and doors. Cut the windows and doors using a craft knife. Safety First! Do not allow younger children to use a craft knife and supervise older children. (I still prefer to do the craft knife bits myself.)

Tape the main construction with masking tape to hold everything in place. Because our house is fairly large, we did it as three separate pieces.

Now you can start covering your house with bits of newspaper. Mix your wood glue 2/3 glue and 1/3 part water. Paint a layer of glue and stick newspaper onto the wet glue. Do not worry about making anything too tidy as you want your house to look weathered and derelict. The newspaper would make your construction sturdy and cover the masking tape. Once the newspaper is completely dry, paint the inside of the house first. Paint the outside in the colour of your choice. We used grey with streaks of darker grey and black.

Our house felt incomplete so we decided to add a garden. The house fitted perfectly on an opened and flattened cookie box. We added newspaper and glue to give the garden a bit of dimension. The fences were made out of lolly sticks glued together and painted white/grey. We added some plastic plants, a dead tree, rocks and a pathway.

Lastly place your LED lights inside the house to create and eerie, ghostly glow!