Rustic fall crafts - child friendly

Hello everyone. I saw this YouTube video a month or so ago and I thought her outdoor fall decorations and instructions were right up my alley.

Samantha Medlin fall decorations YouTube video

And then I saw my husband had lots of wood scraps in his shop.  

I looked on Pinterest and saw even more easy fall crafts and decided we had the right size scraps to make some friendly monsters and some chunky pumpkins. 

I gathered up paint, brushes, a cover for the table, permanent black markers, a hot glue gun and gloves for me. 

When 3 of our grands were here yesterday,   they did the painting,  

We ended up with10 pumpkins made from scraps of 4 by 4 posts.  Our stems are made from old thread spools and wood craft balls.  They were hot glued on along with some silk maple leaves.  

I kept 5 for our front porch and the grands took 5 to their home, their mom put theirs on their mantle.  

I saw these happy monsters on Pinterest and wanted to make them too.

They are scraps of 2 by 4s that the grands painted.  When the paint was dry, I added some of the facial features with black markers.  Some of the eyes are eyeball stickers.  

I don’t do scary anything so our monsters are all cheerful and friendly looking. 

They will be standing in this living room window during this season. 

The pile of blankets stayed on the couch because grands were here for 2 days in a row and the youngest ones all take afternoon naps.  

The post pumpkins are on our front porch in between a bunch of ........

Osage Oranges that grow on a tree near a pond in our addition.  I pick them up most every fall to decorate our porch.

We are having a very mild fall. We still have zinnias in full bloom and we still have monarch butterflies.  

I thought monarchs migrated before cold weather arrives?

5 of the grands were here for lunch- we all enjoyed quesadillas, grapes and bananas on Tupperware dishes. 

Meals don’t have to be fancy or elaborate. 

Their afternoon snack was popcorn. 

And here’s 2 year old JackJack since you can’t see his face in the group photo

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He’s cute, right? 

And you know the reputation Two Year Olds have? 

Well,  that’s our JackJack.  His name is Jackson but he calls himself JackJack and I like it.  

But his other two year habits......I know they will pass but he is a handful right now.  

We love him lots!