I stocked up on Halloween treats early this year. I don’t visit the shops very frequently so bought loads of treats which if course we’ve already opened and enjoyed. Most of our Halloween decorations are up and this weekend we’re hoping to make a Halloween gingerbread house.

Our crafting time is limited now we are all back at school but we managed to squeeze in a really fun craft using recycled corks this week. Our simple Halloween painted cork craft for kids makes a great after school activity, and a fun way to use up any corks you have squirrelled away.

Halloween painted cork craft supplies:

wine corks

acrylic paint (black, white, orange, green)

fine paint brushes

chalk pens (black, white)

nails

Easy Halloween painted cork craft for kids

First we chose the characters we wanted to make. We had enough corks that we could all make a couple of Halloween decorations. Between the three of us we chose a black cat, a monster, a ghost, pumpkin and skeleton.

I used an egg box to hold the supplies. There was space for our acrylic paints and somewhere to keep the corks whilst they were drying.

First we covered the corks in acrylic paint. Black for the black cat, green for the monster, white for the ghost and skeleton, and bronze for the pumpkin (I couldn’t find orange anywhere!).

The corks were very absorbent but only needed one coat of paint.

When the painted corks were dry we could add detail either with a fine paint brush or chalk pens. The black cat was given whiskers; the monster, ghost and pumpkin were given faces. We added bones to the skeleton cork.

I found some tiny nails to push into the cork to give Frankenstein’s monster a really spooky look. And we also added some nails to the cat in place of ears.

I love that these Halloween corks were simple enough that the children could make them after school. They’ve been hiding them all over the place!