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Bag of Gross-eeries

Bag of Gross-eeries

Total Time Needed: 2-3 Hours

It may be Halloween, but you won't find a single treat in this giant sack of groceries. Instead, this bag of tricks will fill the bill for kids who love the gross-out factor.

Materials

  • Large brown paper leaf bag (sold at many hardware stores)
  • Craft knife
  • Large piece of corrugated cardboard
  • Double-sided foam tape
  • 2 yards of 1-1/2-inch-wide black ribbon
  • 25- by 17-inch piece of white poster board
  • Double-sided clear tape
  • Stapler
  • Assorted clean, empty food containers, such as cereal boxes, juice jugs, and egg cartons
  • Markers and self-adhesive labels

OPTIONAL

  • Rubber rat, cockroaches, and chicken
  • Balloons, stocking leg, string, and foam packing peanuts
  • Yellow acrylic paint and white glue

Instructions

Cut the bottom off the leaf bag. If there's lettering on the bag, turn it inside out.

Bag of Gross-eeries - Step 2

Measure the opening at the bag's top (the one shown here is 15 by 12 inches) and cut a piece of cardboard that is the same width but 4 inches longer (ours is 15 by 16 inches). Fold up 2-inch flaps in the front and back of the cardboard.

Cut a hole in the middle of the cardboard big enough for your child to fit through. Apply double-sided foam tape to the flap backs and stick the cardboard in place inside the very top of the bag.

Bag of Gross-eeries - Step 4

Fold the ribbon in half and join the fold with double-sided foam tape to the underside of the cardboard insert near the back of the bag.

Bag of Gross-eeries - Step 5

Make a milk carton hat by creasing the white poster board as shown and then cutting an opening for your child's face in the front panel.

Bag of Gross-eeries - Step 6

Shape the creased poster board into an open carton, sticking the edges together with double-sided clear tape. Then pinch and fold the upper edges, as shown, and staple the carton top closed.

Now fill the top of the bag with Gross-eeries by decorating assorted clean, empty food containers with handprinted or downloadable labels, such as Sour Milk, Surreal Cereal, Rotten Eggs, and Nasty Nibbles.

Bag of Gross-eeries - Step 8

Tape the items to the inner bag. Once your child has stepped into the finished costume, use the foam tape to secure the loose ends of the ribbon to the inner front of the bag to make shoulder straps.

Bag of Gross-eeries - Step 9
Tips:

How To Make Spoiled Goods

Make rotten sausage links by inserting inflated balloons into a long stocking leg and tying knots between the links. You can even tape on foam packing peanut maggots (yuck!).

Cut a hole in the front of a box and add a rubber rat, tape rubber cockroaches to the bag, or stuff a rubber chicken in among the other Gross-eeries.

Create a slimy blob of egg yolk by mixing 1 part yellow acrylic paint with 3 parts white glue. Cover a piece of cardboard with plastic wrap and pour the glue mixture over it. Let the mixture dry for 1 or 2 days, then peel it from the wrap and glue it to the bag.

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