The weather is cooling down and fall is officially in full swing! With October comes falling leaves, pumpkins, and sweet treats to share during Halloween. When it comes to crafts, carving pumpkins can be messy and difficult for certain little ones. Instead, switch up your Halloween craft routine and make your own candy this year!

Make your very own lollipops right at home! Lollipops are easier to make than you may think. It just takes a few ingredients and little bit of patience. You can find our favorite hard candy and lollipop recipe here .  If you want an even easier recipe, a hard candy mix will be your best friend – just add water and flavoring!  For this project we suggest using a mold that makes round lollipops like this Jack-O-Lantern sheet mold or this one for Small Round lollipops.  Be sure to wrap finished lollipops in bags or plastic wrap to help prevent stickiness.

Materials

• Kleenex Tissue (or thin fabric)
• Lollipops
• Black Sharpie
• Thin ribbon or twine

Directions

Now that you have your Lollipops made, it’s time to decorate.  Trick-or-treating is a time to get together with friends and neighbors to get spooky! Get your kids excited for the spooky season by helping them dress up their pops. Whether its ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, or spiders, these easy crafts are perfect for sharing with friends and classmates, or as a fun project to do alone with the kids!

1. Use one full-size tissue and another tissue that has been cut into quarters.
2. Take the quarter piece of tissue and put it in the center of the full-sized tissue. This will help to hide the color of the lollipop underneath the tissue.
3. Place the lollipop in the middle.
4. Drape the tissue over the lollipop and wrap the ribbon or twin around their necks to secure.
5. Use a sharpie to color on eyes.

Materials

• Lollipops
• Orange Tissue Paper
• Green Tissue Paper
• Twine
• Fine Tip Black Sharpie (Or use a washable black marker if your kids are little)

Directions

1. Each pumpkin will have two layers of orange tissue paper. Check your cupboards and try to find a bowl that’s 6 inches wide. Use this bowl to trace circles.
2. For the green, trace a bowl that’s about 6.5 – 7 inches wide. Each pumpkin will have one layer of green tissue paper, but you can cut through as many as you can handle to speed up the process.
3. Take two layers of orange circles and put one layer of the green circle on top of it.
4. Gently fold up two sides around the lollipop, then use your fingers to hold it in place as you press the layers of tissue paper around the lollipop.
5. Pinch the tissue paper at the top of the lollipop where the orange tissue paper meets the green tissue paper.
6. Then cut out a piece of twine or ribbon, loop it around the lollipop twice, and tie it.
7. Get creative with your sharpie and draw different jack-o-lantern faces with a fine tip sharpie.

Materials

• Round lollipops
• Black tissue paper cut into 6-inch circles (one circle for each lollipop)
• Thin black ribbon or cord
• 2 googly eyes per lollipop
• 2 black pipe cleaners per lollipop
• Hot glue

Directions 

1. Wrap each lollipop in one tissue paper circle and tie in place with ribbon or cord.
2. Take two black pipe cleaners, and cut them in half.
3. Place the lollipop on top of one pipe cleaners, about 1/3 of the way in from one side. Wrap the long side around the lollipop and loop it around.  Do the same with the other 3 pipe cleaners.
4. Bend the legs into little L’s. Bend the pipe cleaners slightly sideways too so you have equal spacing between all the legs.
5. Put a small dab of hot glue on the backside of the googly eyes.
6. Place the eyes towards the front of the pipe cleaner spider’s body.
7. Continue until all lollipops are spider-fied.  Eek!

Place your new lollipops in a bowl to share and have a Happy Halloween!