I LOVE Halloween, and so do my kids! In our house, the halloween concept lasts for 365 days. What do I mean by concept? Dressing up, pretending, and acting silly. My three children and all their friends love to dress-up, paint their faces, and act out many different characters. It doesn't matter if they put on my clothes or cut out paper masks. Kids love to invent, explore and be creative. We make face masks for many different occassions. For instance, we made an entire batman costume out of black construction paper and black poster board. All the boys in my neighborhood had a blast trying on the paper outfit. Here's how we did it.

• Creating the mask -- draw the batman mask on an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper. Cut it out. Then hold the mask up to your childs face and mark the eyes and nose. Then cut out the eyes and nose. To attach it to your child's face, get some christmas ribbon. Poke two holes on both sides of the mask. Cut the ribbon into two equal sized strips. Make sure they are long enough to tie the mask behind your child's head. Attach the strips of ribbon to the mask by tieing each one to one of the sides of the mask. Wha-la... you have a mask. Another way you can attach it, which we've done for years, is to tape it to their faces. I've taken two strips of tape, attached one piece to each end, and taped the mask to my child's ears. He's never complained, and is satisfied that he has a mask.
• Creating the wings --  What you will need is one black large poster board, pipe cleaners, and hot glue gun. Cut the poster board in half. Then draw bat wings on one of the halves. Lay both halves on top of each other,. so you can cut both at the same time. With scissors in hand, cut the wings out of the poster board(s). Next glue the middle part of 4 pipe cleaners about 2 - 3 inches apart on the inside of one of the wings. Then glue the last 4 pipe cleaners to the other black bat wing. Once they are dry, attach the wings to your child's arms by tieing the pipe cleaners around his arm.

This year have fun! Below are some suggestions to keeping the halloween theme and spirit alive till next halloween.

• Get some face paint. Let your kids paint your face.
• Get some old clothes and let your kids make costumes out of them. And then let your kids dress you up too.
• Write a list of characters on a piece of paper. Cut them out and put them in a bowl. Once a week, have your children pick out a piece of paper with a character that they are going to create. Why not make it more fun, and let your kids pick a character for you that you have to create with them.

Happy after halloween,

Melissa Perry Moraja

www.melissaproductions.com

www.achievelifebalance.com