Spooky Feet

Last fall, I babysat two young elementary school kids on one of their P.D. days shortly before Hallowe'en.  They wanted to do something fun and crafty, but because we had also spent a lot of time playing outside, we didn't have a lot of time left in the day for an elaborate craft!  They also wanted to make something 'scary' or 'spooky' for Hallowe'en...   This was a fun and easy craft, which allowed them to spend as much or as little time as they wanted on it - adding extra scary details of their own.

We started out with construction paper - dark blue or black, white paint,and a plate/lid that was big enough to fit the biggest foot, a bowl of water, and a rag. Washable paint (like Crayola) works well as it's less work to scrub off of feet (and clothing or floor, should any accidents happen!).

Pour some paint onto the plate/lid, and spread it out to make sure that you'll get paint on the bottom of your whole foot.  Put the plate/lid on the floor - a hard floor not only works better for printing onto the paper, but is also a better idea for clean-up, should any paint drip onto the floor!  Place your paper beside the plate, and your bowl of water beside the paper.  With a bare foot, step onto the paint and firmly press your whole foot down - lift over to the paper, and step straight down. Press down with your heels and toes, then lift your foot - if you want to do two ghosts, we found it worked best to reapply the paint to the foot.  After you're finished printing, swish it in the water to get the paint off.  Wipe off the remaining paint with your towel.

We set aside our ghost prints until they dried - then used  a black marker to make ghostly faces, and other colour paints to finish off the pictures with moons, stars, trees, black cats, and tomb stones!