American Girl Halloween Crafting Party

It was an early release day this past Friday at school so we had a little pre-Halloween fun with Zoey, Gracie and Lily and their dolls.  I was busy Friday morning with a little pre-party preparation. I love stuff like this, wish I could do it all the time!

I made the girls each a green and black tutu for their doll.  I was originally going to have them make them by tying lengths of tulle along a piece of elastic but thankfully I made one the night before and realized that it wasn't probably a good project for this type of gathering as it took quite awhile and was a A LOT of tying!!  So, I made them instead and stuck them in their goody bags.

Here are Kristen and Junie at the craft table...

Zoey's doll Claire hung out near the snack area for most of the gathering.  :)  I got the treat bags and pretty much everything that was in them at the dollar store.  A mini Halloween snow globe for the dolls, a mini Halloween light, cocoa, treats, spider rings, the doll tutus, etc.

I had some fun creating the snacks for the party.  I had been seeing quite a few cute ideas online and wanted everything to be more on the healthy side...it was pretty healthy with the exception of the puppy chow and the rice krispie treats.  :)

The Witches Brooms were made by cutting pieces of string cheese in half and then slicing them up halfway on one end and cutting and then wrapping a slice of onion (or chive) around the broom and tying.  Stick a pretzel stick in and you have a broom!

Monster Eyes were created by sticking some candy eyes (found in the cake decorating area at Wal-Mart) on to grapes with a little peanut butter.

The Ghosts wearing Lipstick were simply bananas cut in half with mini chips stuck in for the eyes and a cherry chip stuck in for the mouth.

Our Pumpkins were peeled clementines with a little celery stem.

The Rice Krispies were the standard recipe with a bit of orange food coloring and some Halloween sprinkles scattered on the top.

Our first craft was making some Halloween themed Shrinky Dinks.  These sets were the last three at our dollar store.  I was worried that they might not work since they were off brand but they worked perfectly!

Here are the girls snacking and coloring their Shrinky Dinks...

And here are the finished charms.

Zoey's...

Gracie's...

and Lily's...

After making the Shrinky Dinks the girls played with their dolls and I set up for the next craft which was making a decoupaged tea light holder using jars and tissue paper. I had some Wilton brand ghost cupcake holders and they were perfect for holding the glue for our project for each girl!  I used standard Elmer's glue.  The girls painted the jars and stuck on the pieces of orange tissue paper and then painted the whole thing with glue again to seal.

I had pre-cut some face shapes and told the girls they could use those or make their own.

Here they are still wet...they turned out so cute!  We put a battery operated tea light in Zoey's tonight and it looks so festive!

After this the girls played again and dressed up.  We had a couple more crafts at the end of our time together before it was time to take the girls home.  There was a simple little foam sticker pumpkin craft and then the girls made little doll sized candy bars for their dolls so they could go trick-or-treating and get "real" candy.

Here is the little dollar store pumpkin sticker craft...

And the doll sized candy bars (brown craft foam and little Halloween papers to wrap around).

We listened to Halloween music which was fun...

 Here are the dolls that were able to come to the party...

And here were their snacks!  Yummy!

They had a great time as well it seems!

Here is one last shot of Kristen in her fancy, poofy, new tutu!  She LOVES it!  :)

Such a fun time was had by all!  Love that we get to do little things like this.