Pumpkin Seed Art

If you have some pumpkin seeds left from your pumpkin carving, why not turn them into art?

In anticipation of Halloween, we checked out Lois Ehlert's Boo to You! from the library.  The mice are having a harvest party but the cat's not invited!  The kids liked the story but what really got their attention was the cat's teeth made from pumpkin seeds on the front cover.

After carving our pumpkins, I saved some of the seeds, rinsed them, left them to dry and then we squish painted them.  We used plastic baggies and two kinds of paint:  washable poster paint and acrylic paint from Craft Project Ideas.  Both worked well.  I didn't put much paint in the bags and made sure to spread them out on the waxed paper to dry so they didn't stick together.



This was by far their favorite part of the activity.

When the seeds were dry, I planned on letting the kids glue the seeds onto paper however they liked, but apparently they were feeling uninspired. When I suggested we make trees, my 4 year old got interested.  I cut a piece of brown construction paper to look like a tree trunk and branches and he used the seeds as leaves.

We also made some flowers for his sister. He did the glue and I arranged the pumpkin seeds.