Spooky Little Graveyard Tin

 I love Halloween! Like most crafty people, it is one of my favorite holidays. I try to make myself wait till October 1 to start decorating, but then I am unstoppable! One thing that I think people love about Halloween is that you can celebrate it in both spooky and fun ways. Last week's post, Magnetic Monster Mash, is a cute and silly project. This week we went spooky and imagined a tiny haunted cemetery complete with haunted house and creepy gates. Best of all it fits into a tiny felt-covered tin tombstone!

These 2 Halloween crafts are featured in the latest copy of  Kids Crafts 123.

Materials

• Colored pencils
•  Blank Shrinky Dink Sheet
• Empty Altoids "Smalls" tin
• Craft felt in light grey, dark grey and black
• Craft glue
• Super glue

Steps

1. Use your colored pencils to draw some items for your graveyard on the rough side of the Shrinky Dink paper. I drew tombstones, ghosts, trees, witch and cauldron, coffin, Jack O Lanterns, fence, haunted house, spider web and full moon. Your items will shrink to about 1/3 of their size so keep that in mind when you draw them.
2. I made a skull for the front of the tin and a "RIP" sign. Make sure to write any lettering backwards because after they shrink the shiny side will be the front.
3. You will need some plain pieces to help your items stand so cut some different sizes of small rectangles and squares out of scrap Shrinky Dink pieces, the more the better.
4. Shrink your haunted items. They tend to curl up in the oven and then flatten back down. I stand with a rubber spatula so I can flatten things quickly before they harden at the end. Also you can reheat them if they don't wind up as flat as you would like. You can cook them in small batches to better control the curling.
5. After they cool, use superglue to attach some scrap pieces to the bottom so they will stand up. The photo at the bottom shows how this will look.
6. Decorate your tin tombstone. I used two shades of grey and black felt and then attached the Shrinky Dink pieces with superglue.

You may want to check out our Pop Up Matchbook Sarcophagus:

You can see our projects, along with tons of other great ideas in the latest issue of  Kids Crafts 123!
Check it out here if you want more Halloween ideas.