This fun Halloween craft came in handy at our Halloween party last weekend and I thought it’d be great to share. We have an annual Halloween costume party a couple of weeks before the holiday that is normally an opportunity for everyone to get sitters and have a fun kid-free party before all the trick-or-treating festivities towards the end of the month. Well, sitters fell through, and things happen, and we ended up with 4 bored kiddos at a party full of grown-ups.

After a scramble in the craft room we found some yarn and had googly-eyes from some decorations on hand and the kids had a blast creating monsters with each other (until they eventually found sticks in the yard and decided to sword fight).

What you’ll need:

Yarn (a bulkier yarn will make sturdier monsters)
Scissors
Self stick googly eyes, or if using regular ones you will need glue
Pipe cleaners
Cardboard or poster board, cut to be ~6'“ tall and 4” wide, you can vary the height for different sized monsters

Start by wrapping your yarn around the cardboard lengthwise about 100 times. This will be the body of your monster.

Next, you will take your pipe cleaner and slide it between the yarn and the top of the cardboard. This will hold your yarn together and also form the antennas.

Then you will take your scissors and cut the yarn at the bottom of the cardboard.

Take the antenna ends and twist them together to secure the yarn at the top. Then take another pipe cleaner and wrap it around the yarn bundle about 1/3 from the top (~1.5” depending on how tall your cardboard was). You can continue to loop around the pipe cleaner so there are no loose ends, or you can hide them in the yarn bundle.

Next trim the bottom of the yarn bundle so all of the ends are even, this will give the monster a nice uniform look. Then you can start personalizing your monster but twisting and curling its antennas and giving it some eyes.