• Halloween crafts are a creative alternative to carving pumpkins.little girls with a pumpkin image by Lisa Eastman from Fotolia.com
  
  Spooky crafts are a good way to get the whole family excited for Halloween, but activities like pumpkin carving can be messy and even dangerous for younger children. For a safer alternative, try some amusing pipe cleaner crafts to keep your kids involved.
  
  

Spooky Spiders

• Cut out one compartment from an egg carton. Poke or punch four holes on opposite sides of the open end of the cup for a total of eight holes. Using black tempera paint or magic markers, color the outside of the cup black and let dry. Cut two pipe cleaners into halves, and insert each piece in through one hole and out through the hole on the opposite side. Bend the protruding pipe cleaners to create the legs. Create the eyes with white paint or by gluing two googly eyes to the front of the cup.
  
  

Halloween Critter Rings

• To make the ring, cut 1 1/2 inches from a pipe cleaner and shape it into a "U." Using tacky glue, attach a small pom-pom onto either end of the "U," and then glue a small googly eye onto each pom-pom. Cut two pieces of pipe cleaner roughly 2 inches in length each and curl them around a pen or pencil. Glue each curled piece onto the pom-poms as antennae, and then glue smaller pom-poms to cap them off. Place the "U" on your finger so that the pom-poms are facing upwards, and then twist it into a circle to seal the ring.
  
  

Pipe Cleaner Skeleton

• Using a package of white pipe cleaners, cut one of the pipe cleaners in half, using one half for the skeleton's spine. Set the other half of the pipe cleaner aside. Cut another pipe cleaner into two pieces, one being about one-third the length and the other being two-thirds. Twist the middle of the longer piece around one end of the spine piece from the first step and shape into legs. Repeat this process by taking another two-thirds of a pipe cleaner and twisting it around the other end of the spine to make the arms. For the ribs, twist a pipe cleaner around the top end of the spine and bend it into a zigzag shape. Once the zigzag is complete, twist the end of the pipe cleaner around the bottom end of the spine. Use the other half of the pipe cleaner from the first step to make the skull by forming a circle. Connect the circular skull to the rest of the skeleton by twisting it onto the spine.