Long gone are the days when you had to carve out turnips because no one knew what a pumpkin was – never mind finding a supermarket that sold them! Whether you’re throwing a Halloween Hoolie for the entire neighbourhood, or just want to impress trick or treaters coming to your door, Fairy Godmother of Finance Ellen Finlay has worked her magic to come up with ideas for decorating your home that won’t spook your bank balance!
1.Halloween Wreath
Fabulous fun for a rainy day, get the kids involved in making a Halloween Wreath. Reuse an old Christmas Wreath and paint spray black or wrap tinsel around a wire hanger shaped into a circle. Bling it up by asking the kids to gather up leaves, add colourful Christmas baubles in complementary colours and pick up some scary plastic spiders, bats or skull decorations in the Pound Shop and glue on. Or what about a colourful Day of the Dead wreath using fake flowers? You could also place a warning sign in the middle before hanging on your front door – Beware! or Boo!
2. Spooky Specimen Jars
Recycle your empty glass jars and convert them into a spooky scientist’s lab. Throw all sorts of eerie items into the jars, like eyeballs, plastic fingers or other body parts all widely available at this time of year. Top up with water, add a few drops of green or red food colouring and voila! A selection of spooky specimen jars that Dr Frankenstein would be proud of.
3. Garden Cemetery
Turn your front garden into a creepy cemetery. Use whatever you have around the house such as blocks of wood, branches etc. Cut out headstone shapes from large cardboard boxes to create your haunted cemetery and get the kids to help you paint them. Why not consider doing this along your path to make for a thrilling Halloween walk of horror to your door for all those trick or treaters.
4. Flying Bats
It just wouldn’t be Halloween without a selection of flying bats. Using some black felt and tape you can cut out a whole gang of bats and either string together in a long garland, hang them individually from your ceiling or place randomly flying across a wall. Scooby Doo – where are you…?
Ghostly Ghouls
It’s terrifyingly easy to create a ghostly sight to greet your Halloween party guests. For a life-sized spectre, use a single sheet-size of cheesecloth and insert a white balloon in the middle underneath as the head. If you have a coat stand it’s the perfect place to create your ghoul. Once the cloth is draped over the balloon head, use spray starch to make your form and leave to dry. Don’t spray the bottom, just leave to float and fray the bottom for an authentic, raggedy look. Stick on eyes and hang using a piece of fishing line from a chandelier or tree. For a less scary effect for little ones, create mini versions in the same way using scraps of cheesecloth.
Giant Spiders
The only time of year that you might welcome spiders into your home – but fingers crossed you never find a real one this size in your bath! Use black bin bags filled with newspaper to make a round body, use kitchen roll tubes painted black for the legs and just add googly glowing eyes. Make several and cluster around your front porch or door to scare away unwanted visitors.
You really don’t have to spend a lot of money to enter into the Halloween spirit. Many of these suggestions are a wonderful way of recycling old decorations lying about your loft and keeping your little monsters entertained by helping you make them.
Got a great idea for a super saver Halloween craft? Email editor@ni4kids.com and we’ll share a selection with our readers, plus there’s a prize for our favourite!
Author: Nadia Duncan
Editor