There’s still time!  Forget pumpkin carving and make these adorable Hallowe’en characters out of scrap wood and leftover paint!

I need to do more small projects.

I love big projects – the challenge, the results etc – but they are big and take a lot of time (this blog is my second job AND I’m a single Mom)… so big projects mean less content is posted on the blog because I’m working on building.

This little project was a super-easy, scrap wood craft that my friend Char (9yrs) and I did while working on the kitchen island build.

The wood is just leftover 2″x 4″s that we laminated together for the island legs.  I planed them down for the big build, so it left us with these pretty scraps.


scrap wood

I showed Char how to use the random orbit sander and she made the blocks nice and smooth for painting.

I had some leftover tester pots of paint from my Hallowe’en Owl from last year, so we decided on our characters and got them painted up.

Wood Frankenstein, wood ghost, wood purple people eater

Our blue character was going to be Sully from Monsters Inc, but we never finished him?  I can’t remember why not?

We did use a drill press to put holes for tea lights in their heads, but no matter how often I light them, even the slightest breeze blows the tea lights out – so this step could have been skipped altogether. 

We drew out some eyes, wings, horn and hair onto some leftover 1/8″ ply and then cut it out with a scroll saw.

We painted our parts before attaching and once dry, we glued them onto our wood Frankenstein, wood ghost and wood Purple People Eater.

I suggest Gorilla Glue clear; hot glue didn’t hold in the frost and Gorilla Glue (beige) expands so the parts will pop off the blocks.

Wood ghost, wooden ghost, scrap wood ghost

I think our wood ghost was supposed to be angry, but he looks kind of sad I think?

I don’t blame him, I hate giving candy away too.

wood Purple People Eater, scrap wood monster

Sing it, I know you want to!

“It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flying Purple People Eater…”

And then Frankie – who has an interesting hair treatment because I sprayed a clear coat over un-cured paint.

Oh well, I kinda liked how it turned out.

I tried to replicate it on the wood Purple People Eater, but it didn’t work (Murphy’s law) and his wings came out perfectly smooth. lol

wood Frankenstein, wooden Frankenstein, scrap wood monsters

An adorable Hallowe’en trio; wood ghost, wood Frankenstein, and wood purple people eater made by a 9 year old (with a little help from a grown up or two).

wood Frankenstein, wooden Frankenstein, scrap wood monster

Wood Frankenstein, wood ghost, wood purple people eater

So easy.  So cute. So inexpensive.

And hey!  If you love Hallowe’en, these also make great doorstops – like the wooden owl door stops I made a couple of years ago!

Have a great one!