I love to craft and I love to craft with L too. We’ve made so many things together over the years, some have been successful and some haven’t but we’ve always had fun. So obviously Halloween crafting was on the agenda.

Despite having a very well stocked craft room and enjoying a number of crafts, sometimes I don’t have the headspace to come up with projects for us. I’m busy, I’m tired, I’m on edge. So I’ll be honest, despite thinking about Halloween and planning on how we’ll decorate our pumpkin this year (Baymax, yey) I hadn’t thought about any fun little after school crafts for me and the boy. So I was delighted when Lexy from Made By Me Craft Parties asked if I would like to review one of her Halloween Craft boxes, it had everything I’d need for three spooky projects and one experiment. It took away any need for thinking or planning on my part which is something I’m not sure she’ll every realise how grateful I am for.

L was really excited when the box arrived and it was all I could do to stop him tearing into each beautifully wrapped project. Inside the box was four bags, each containing a project, clear written instructions and a link to the video tutorial. All this wrapped up in spooky orange tissue, which actually gets used in a project and a smattering of halloween confetti.

L literally wanted to start there and then, so as we had a little time before bed, we sat on my bed and made our first project. The ghost keyring. This is such a simple make and L listened as I read him the instructions, finding the right things as he went and carefully wrapping the wool, threading on the decorations and cutting to create his own little keyring. The only thing he needed helped with was tying the knots, just to make sure they were tight enough more than anything. We glued the eyes into place and in no more than 15 minutes he had a brilliant and very effective woolen ghost keyring.

I really enjoyed this little project, not only because it was so quick and easy and involved no mess at all, but also because I would have literally never thought of it myself. It’s so simple but it would have never occured to me. The finished ghost looks great, just like the picture and L made it all by himself with very minimal help from me, so he is also super proud of himself.

The ghost having gone so well, L was on a role and desperate to do just one more thing before bed. He’d go to bed nicely, he promised. So we moved onto the pumpkin hanging decoration. Another simple yet effective little project. L carefully threaded all his orange beads onto a green pipe cleaner. Twisting the ends together to form a loop of beads and a pumpkin stalk. I just double checked the tightness of his twist and helped him shape it into a pumpkin. Then we added the hanging loop and it was complete. Another craft finished in super quick time. He adores it.

Whilst we have done similar crafts to this before, making our own bead candy canes one Christmas, it was lovely not to have to sort through all my beads and pick out the right colours. Lovely to just have all we needed right there, all sorted into a little bag and ready to go.

We had to wait a few days until the weekend before we finished the project in our Halloween Craft Box. Our third project was the pumpkin lantern, the project L was most excited for. Again this is a nice simple project and you get everything you need included, it’s just a bit messier as it involves glue! It’s very much like decoupage, tearing the tissue up into small bits and glueing it onto the pot. A layer of glue, a bit of tissue then another layer of glue, until covered. It messy enough that L is in his element, but not so messy that I freak out. He had his pot covered in no time and had cut up the eyes for his pumpkin, but wanted some help with the mouth, he knew what he wanted but couldn’t quite work out how to cut it himself. It was soon finished though, but he had to patient and wait for it to dry.

Whilst we waited for it to dry we completed the experiment. A fun little task to talk about static electricity. We made a little paper ghost and using a balloon, charged on my jumper, made it move and dance and even float a little. I didn’t manage to get any pictures of this as it all got very excitable very quickly and the little ghosty got squished. It was just another fun little thing to do and a good way to have a chat about how rubbing the balloon on my jumper created the static charge and how that affected the paper ghost. In with this little experiment there were also some glow in the dark Halloween stickers, not for use with any of the crafts, just as a little added free gift. L has stuck them to his wardrobe so he can see them glowing at night. I thought that was a lovely extra touch, really kind.

With the pumpkin still not dry we headed out for a lovely muddy walk and collected yet more conkers for our collection but when we got home it was finally time to pop the little battery operated tealight into the pumpkin and close the lid. It looks great, so effective and really easy to do. We’ll make sure it’s on the windowsill all lit up for everyone to see this Halloween, though for the moment, it is the centrepiece on our dining table and gets turned on every evening whilst we eat.

I loved this Halloween craft kit and L really did as well, the crafts are perfectly suited to children. They are simple and quick to complete. They also look amazing when they are finished, I don’t think I could have made them look any better if I had made them myself, seeing them look just like the pictures gave L a real sense of pride and I don’t blame him. The kit is only £10 and comes with everything you need to complete each project, we literally only needed to grab a pair of scissors and make sure one of us was wearing a wooly jumper for the experiment.

I wish I’d discovered Made By Me Craft Parties sooner as I would have definitely got a couple of kits so L could have enjoyed making a few of these bits with his two friends for his birthday this week. I think they would have really enjoyed doing it together, had I thought it through at all I would have saved the Halloween box for them to complete together. Now I know for next year though and I’ve got high hopes about Lexy creating a Christmas Craft box to keep us entertained!

Disclosure – we were gifted our Halloween Craft Box for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, opinions and images are my own.