This year’s craft-ernoon pairs a DIY Halloween mask with Halloween Tonies spooky enough for the season and gentle enough for the kid wearing it.
You don’t need a haunted house to celebrate Halloween. Let’s explore how you can also make it memorable with Halloween Tonies, a few spooky stories, and a fun craft to help you and your little listeners get into the spirit without the jump scares and creepy makeup.
Gather Your Supplies
Note: Don’t think you need to get everything on this list. These are just a few suggestions for items they might want to create their masterpiece.
- Print their mask of choice: a Vampire, Superhero, or Cat
- Markers, crayons, colored pencils, pens
- Scissors
- Glue
- Hole punch
- Pipe cleaners to secure it when they’re all finished
- A few extras: feathers, jewels, sequins, stickers, glitter
- Halloween Tonies to set the mood!
Halloween Tonies to Set the Mood for their Craft-ernoon
Which Tonie starts the show during this Halloween Craft-ernoon depends on the kid at the table.
For younger or easily-spooked listeners, the Halloween 5 Tonies Set leans funny over frightening and includes Spookley the Square Pumpkin, two volumes of Halloween & Spooky Songs, a Spooky Tales figure, and a Vampire Creative Tonie (more on that below!). Spookley is a great pick for kids 3+. He’s the sort of pumpkin who finds the good in being a little different from the others.
For kids who want more of an edge, the Goosebumps Set transforms four of R.L. Stine's classics to a spine-tingling audiobook experience. These are aimed more at kids eight and up who want a slightly bigger scare. Listeners can enjoy just about ten and a half hours of ventriloquist dummies, cursed cameras, and a theme park nobody can quite leave with: Night of the Living Dummy, Say Cheese and Die!, The Haunted Mask, and One Day at HorrorLand.
Record Your Own Spooky Story on the Vampire Creative Tonie
A Creative Tonie is a blank figure that holds up to 90 minutes of personal stories or free content pulled straight from the tonies® app. Record memories of Halloweens past, spooky stories they’ve created themselves or maybe a list of costume ideas or their favorite Halloween traditions. Place the Tonie on the Toniebox and this customized audio soundtrack is ready to go!
And you don't have to stop at one voice, either. Under Household in the tonies® app, you can invite grandparents, aunts, uncles, or family friends to record their own stories on the app and they’ll show up on their Creative Tonie, from wherever they are. Ninety minutes fills up fast once more than one storyteller gets involved Learn more about Creative Tonies here.
Making the Masks
Step 1: Color it in
This is the part where a plain outline turns into something really special. A vampire with green skin and a lightning-bolt scar, a superhero symbol nobody's seen before, whatever your kid decides the character needs. Let their creativity shine!
Step 2: Add some extras
A few feathers glued along one edge or some plastic jewels pressed into the corners turn a mask sheet into a mask that looks like nobody else's. Those extra few minutes of detail work really make it something they can be proud of.
Step 3: Cut it out
Eye holes included; let an adult handle the scissors for that part.
Step 4: Punch a hole on each side
Step 5: Thread a pipe cleaner through each one, then twist the ends together at the back of the head to hold it in place.
That's it! But the fun doesn't have to stop there. Here comes the joy of imagination! Suddenly a new voice might show up, then a walk, then a whole backstory of the character they just created all on their own.
By the end of the afternoon, you’ll likely have a kitchen table covered in marker caps, glitter on the floor you’ll still be finding around Christmastime, and a very proud kid in a homemade mask holding court as a newly developed character that didn’t exist yesterday. And you’ve spent an hour making something together that might turn into a new tradition for everyone. Stay in the loop on new Tonies releases. You never know, there might be a new story to fill your family’s Halloween soundtrack next year.