{"id":7721,"date":"2012-10-24T12:32:11","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T17:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madeeveryday.com\/?p=7721"},"modified":"2016-12-16T15:36:44","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T21:36:44","slug":"tutorial-little-rock-ghost-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madeeveryday.com\/tutorial-little-rock-ghost-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Rock Ghost Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a year now I’ve wanted to create a handmade Christmas village for my kids. My mom has a store-bought version at their house and Lucy and Owen adore playing with it.\u00a0 And making one from recycled items seemed like the way to go.\u00a0 The problem I kept running into was was how to create the little people to go with the village.\u00a0 Make them out of clothespins?\u00a0 Wood?\u00a0 I couldn’t come up with the right solution….
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n…until this picture<\/a> popped up on my instagram<\/a> (@danamadeit).\u00a0 Thanks Annie!\u00a0 And it all came together.\u00a0\u00a0 The project wasn’t meant to be a Christmas<\/em> village…but a Ghost Town! YES.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nSo we churned a bunch of cardboard and paint together, made a bowl of village ghosts, and with our bats<\/a> and moon<\/a> as the backdrop had the perfect Halloween hangout.\u00a0 Welcome to Little Rock Ghost Town!
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\nAnd when you’re done, check out our UPDATED GHOST TOWN post<\/a> a few years later.\u00a0 The kids keep adding more and more buildings:<\/p>\n

\"how-to-make-a-little-rock-ghost-town-1\" \"how-to-make-a-little-rock-ghost-town-2\"
\nThe idea is self-explanatory.
\nTake a bunch of old stuff and turn them into spooky houses and haunted hotels.
\nEndless possibilities! \"\"<\/a>
\nBut this wasn’t just a fun<\/em> project.
\nI. Loved. It.
\n(maybe more than the kids.)<\/p>\n

It was pretty much like carving pumpkins….but even better!\u00a0 Less messy, more options! \u00a0 If we had done this growing up I would have been at the table for hours, cutting, gluing, pruning, tweaking.\u00a0 And my siblings would have been right there with me.\u00a0 I love this stuff!
\nThe excitement is legit.<\/p>\n

Here are a few notes…<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Grab whatever recyclables you have on-hand:<\/strong> cereal boxes, other food boxes, diaper boxes, oatmeal cans, kleenex boxes, etc.
\n\u2022 Let the kids draw their design on the box<\/strong> (like carving a pumpkin) and then let mom and dad cut out the design with a knife or scissors.
\n\u2022 Cut out the back wall of the house<\/strong> so that it’s open and easy for playtime.
\n\u2022 Use a hotglue gun to glue everything together.\u00a0<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Be as creative and crazy as you want!<\/strong>\u00a0 Add a chimney with a hole in top for ghosts to slide down.\u00a0 Create stairs?\u00a0 Make a railing around the balcony.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nWhen your houses are ready, paint them with whatever you have on-hand.\u00a0 I always have a range of spray paints in the garage but you can also use wall paint and a brush, or markers, or you could cover the whole thing with colorful paper.\u00a0 Just talking about this makes me want build a few more houses…
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nWe sprayed the inside of the houses one color, let them dry, taped the windows shut, then sprayed the outside of the houses a different color.\u00a0 Some of the cereal box words still show through under the paint but no biggie.\u00a0 I did two coats of paint on each house.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nAnd look! You’ve got some haunted buildings!\u00a0 They just need a few more touches….
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nUse sharpies to outline all the windows, doors, trims, and roofs, and to add texture and trees.\u00a0 Then write words on the side of the hotel, etc.\u00a0 This step makes a huge difference.\u00a0 The silver sharpie on black paint is my favorite.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nAnd there you go!
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nNow for some spooky inhabitants: ROCK GHOSTS.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nI can’t take credit for this cool idea. The little rock ghosts come from Annily Green<\/a>.\u00a0 Isn’t she genius?\u00a0 Pet rocks turned to Ghost rocks!\u00a0 Love it.\u00a0 The hardest part was finding rocks that were flat on the bottom and would stand up.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nBut the kids had fun searching for them down by the river.\u00a0 Then we sprayed them with white paint, drew Sharpie faces, and created a whole new family with all the usual suspects….pirate, overly happy ghost, girly hair-bow ghost, grumpy ghost.\u00a0 Oooooooo.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nThe total payoff of the project was how much the kids LOVED playing with these things!\u00a0 I finished decorating the houses and ghosts at night while they were in bed, then I set them up on our half-wall.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nIn the morning you would have thought it was Christmas.\u00a0 No joke.\u00a0 They woke up before us and I could hear them in the hallway whispering and squealing about the different ghost faces, and the tree on the house, and the names of the hotels, and how fun it looked when you shined your flashlight in the window.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nThen they gave names to every ghost and came up with a “Boo Boo Inn” song.\u00a0 They played with those things for 3 days straight.
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>
\nBest Halloween project yet.
\nYay for recycled family fun, both day and night!
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a year now I’ve wanted to create a handmade Christmas village for my kids. My mom has a store-bought version at their house and Lucy and Owen adore playing with it.\u00a0 And making one from recycled items seemed like the way to go.\u00a0 The problem I kept running into was was how to create […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[288,291,338],"tags":[335,294],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLittle Rock Ghost Town - MADE EVERYDAY<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.madeeveryday.com\/tutorial-little-rock-ghost-town\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Little Rock Ghost Town - MADE EVERYDAY\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For a year now I’ve wanted to create a handmade Christmas village for my kids. 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