Haunted Hodge-Podge Collage

Use up old scraps of paper, fabric and other odds and ends to create a Haunted Hodge-Podge Collage from Happy Hooligans

Not only was this a fun exercise in creating open-ended art, it was an opportunity for the children to explore a variety of materials with which to express themselves artistically.

I save up my Styrofoam meat trays (I run them through the dishwasher to sterilize them), and I've been eyeing up the black ones for a while now, thinking they’d be perfect for a Halloween craft. At first I thought we’d do something similar to the Styrofoam Art that we made in the Spring, but then I opened my fabric cupboard today and my plan came together. 

I went through the craft cupboards and gathered up some odds and ends, and soon had the makings of a spook-tacular collage. You can use any scrap materials that you have on hand. Just make sure they’re the right colours for Halloween.

We used scraps of green, black, purple and orange fabric, cotton balls, googly eyes, black and purple curling ribbon, sparkly gems and the left over painted-pasta from other projects.

The Hooligans started by decorating their trays with orange, green and purple paint (fyi: little ones will likely blend all of their colours together to make a not-so-hallowe’en-ish background. Just wanted you to know…)

When the paint is dry (we keep an old blow-dryer in the craft room to speed up the process), brush the surface of the tray with some slightly watered down white glue.

Now you can go to town, and stick on all of your goodies to create your haunted hodge-podge.

How fun are these? I just love how they turned out!

And of course, Hooligan-at-heart that I am, I had to make one of my own.