Penny Pinching Peach

For the semi crunchy, homeschool friendly and totally frugal!

Tag Archives: no carve pumpkin


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Fall Themed Activities for a Frugal Family

I  am always looking for themed activities for my kids! I thought I’d share a few of my favorite fall activities for you to try with the children of your life!

 

Big Sister Pumpkin

Big Sister Pumpkin

Don’t Cut Your Pumpkins!!

I prefer to keep sharp tools away from my littlest kiddos, so this was a great way to avoid the hazards of more typical methods!

 

Pumpkin Mask Supplies

Pumpkin Mask Supplies

Paper Plate Pumpkin Masks

These paper plate pumpkin masks were easy, use items most of us have scattered about the house, & my children truly had a blast with them!

 

Monster and Ghost Puppets

Monster and Ghost Puppets

The Teeny Tiny Ghost and the Monster

This is a precious little book! The activities I came up with to do with it were a big hit with the littles!

 

Happy Spider

Happy Spider

Crafty Snacking

Simple spider to make to eat for a spooky treat!

 

Pumpkin Family

Pumpkin Family

No Carving Pumpkin Family

This was my idea of how to creatively avoid those sharp items I referred to earlier! We got a lot of positive feedback from these!

 

To get a head start for the upcoming holiday for gratefulness, here are a couple of cute turkey activities!

 

Upcycled Thanksgiving Turkey

Upcycled Thanksgiving Turkey

Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

Upcycled turkey craft for the little guys!

Thanksgiving turkey printable

Thanksgiving turkey printable

Free Printable Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

This free printable works well as a fall craft to go with a colorful fall leaves walk!

A few years ago, we had a very special blessing to appreciate & celebrate, as featured by a well recognized site from my post here Another Thanksgiving Blessing!

Did you realize that there is a National Write a Letter of Appreciation Week  ?

 


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Don’t Cut Your Pumpkins!!

Kiddos With Their Pumpkins

Kiddos With Their Pumpkins

Don’t cut your pumpkins!!!

If you are like me, you don’t look forward to trying to carve pumpkins into jack o’lanterns. In fact, I am totally paranoid about using sharp knives and carving instruments with my little ones. So, to satisfy their desire to decorate pumpkins while keeping my anxieties quiet, we just don’t cut, carve or otherwise mutilate our pumpkins.

Do decorate your pumpkins!

You can do so many things with them without cutting, and they should last all the way until time to decorate for Christmas! I love to do a pumpkin with a thankful theme. My children like to make pumpkins representing themselves. We have also done pumpkins that were just randomly decorated. Be inspired by what you like! I’m more about making fall decorations with my pumpkins and less about making them holiday oriented. Most Halloween themed things don’t pass my rules, anyway, since I don’t allow witches and wickedness in our décor this time of year.

Big Sister Pumpkin

Big Sister Pumpkin

Be creative and have fun!

My kids chose their pumpkins this year. They each chose a small one to represent themselves, and my oldest daughter picked a miniature one to represent their baby sister. They wanted to do their own decorating of their own pumpkins, and to give me ideas of what they wanted me to do for baby sister. 🙂

We used materials we had on hand. My deceased mother in law absolutely adored Halloween, and we wound up with some of her craft supplies. I allowed my kiddos to choose some items from those as part of their pumpkin decorating. We wound up using sequined candy corn and stars, googly eyes, ribbon and paint on the bigger munchkins’ pumpkins in the designs of their choosing and creation. I helped very little, since they were having fun and I wanted them to have pride in creating their own. We used smaller googly eyes, a real piece of candy corn for a nose, raffia and pipe cleaner for the baby’s miniature pumpkin.

Big Brother Pumpkin

Big Brother Pumpkin

Have a safe and happy autumn!!!!

We managed to decorate these with no booboos and minimal stress. My biggest concern was making sure the paint and glue stayed on the newspapers I laid out on the kitchen floor where we were working!

What kind of decorations have you done this fall?

Check out our No Carving Pumpkin Family! I think it’s pretty stinkin’ cute for fall décor!!!


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No Carving Pumpkin Family

Pumpkin Family

Pumpkin Family

No Carving Pumpkin Family!

This is the first year my daughter has had a huge opinion about pumpkin decorating, and she wanted to do a family out of miniature pumpkins. She picked them out at the pumpkin stand (75 cents each- penny pincher insert 🙂 ), and was super excited to morph them into a pumpkin family to set out on our porch. I did not want to attempt carving pumpkins with two little ones. She wanted a happy family, not a spooky Halloween one, so I was thinking bright & cheerful things she could actually help with. So, I went to the Dollar Tree and got a few items I thought would work for decorating and for crafts later on, stretching my dollars further. We probably used less than $1.00 worth of supplies, so these pumpkins cost less than $1.00 apiece to make. Score!! 🙂
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Read on to find out how to make your own pumpkin family without carving.

We used: Craft Pom Poms like these Pepperell Assorted Pom Poms, Hot Colors, 300 Per Package, Sparkly Pipe Cleaners like these Tinsel Stems 6mm 12″ 25/Pkg-Multi, Googly Eyes like these  Watch them wiggle eyes, Black(500 PIECES) – BULK , paint and glue.

I was too busy creating our cute little pumpkin family with my four year old to take step-by-step photos. I let her pick what she wanted on each one and how she wanted it. She helped as much as she could with actually doing it, like sticking on the glued pom poms for hair & noses, helping paint the eyebrows, eyelashes and mouths, and sticking on the eyes.

Sister & Brother Pumpkin

Sister & Brother Pumpkin

We just made cute pumpkins without a knife!!

Above are the first two we made- the little girl and little brother. My little girl wanted her girl pumpkin to have curls like her, so I made her hair into curls by twisting each pipe cleaner around a pencil and sliding it off.

Below are the mommy and daddy, which we did last. I just curled the very bottom of the mommy’s hair, since she wanted it to be pretty much straight and long like her own mommy’s. She chose all of the colors for everything herself. 🙂

Mommy & Daddy Pumpkin

Mommy & Daddy Pumpkin

Did anyone else decorate pumpkins this fall? Any other parents squeamish about knives, carving and small crazy people? 🙂

For a fun story time activity this fall and Halloween, try The Teeny Tiny Ghost and the Monster!