Decorating your house for Halloween is so much fun, and it’s even more fun if you prepare ahead and make your own.
Halloween is all about ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night, so think about what spooks you, and design your decorations for maximum mischief.
For example, spiders are probably on most peoples’ number one list of scary things. But you can make spiders that are more fun than frightening – unless you bump into one on the stairs!
To make a simple but scary spider, start with a large polystyrene foam ball. Paint it black all over, and drill a hole right through the body so you can hang it on a string. For the eyes, use those dressmakers’ pins that have blobs of plastic on the heads. Push several pins in a bunch into the top of your spider’s head. If you can’t get the dressmakers’ pins, thread black beads onto ordinary pins. Now take some black crepe paper and make long spidery legs to glue to your spider body. Make them long and dangly so that people are brushed by them as they pass near your spiders.
You can use old fishing nets to make spider webs, hanging them in corners and dangling your spiders from their webs.
To make ghosts that seem to float around, like those on a ghost train, take some more polystyrene balls and a few lengths of white crepe paper or white cheesecloth. Place the ball in the middle of the cloth and gather the cloth into a bunch to form the head of the ghost. Tie in place with white ribbon. Secure a piece of white ribbon to the top of the `head’ so you can hang your ghost. Give it large spooky gaping eyes by gluing on black circles to the front of your ghost’s head and hang them wherever they can brush up against anyone who gets too close.
If you can find a dark corner to put your ghosts and have a neon light source, you can create some very spectacular effects as your ghosts will light up with an unearthly glow.
Another great Halloween decoration is a real Witch’s Broom. Go for a walk in the country and collect your materials. You will need a fairly straight branch about 2-3 inches thick and 4-5 ft long. As well you will need about 20-30 small fine twigs, free of leaves, and some strong string.
Bunch the twigs around one end of the broom and wind the string around them until they are tightly secured to the broom. Tie off. If you don’t have an obliging forest handy, you can use a wooden broom handle and stiff cardstock to make your broom. Cut the cardstock in strips about 1 inch wide, but only to within 2 inches of the edge of the cardstock. Roll your pieces of card stock around one end of the broom handle to form the brush and fix it in place with sticky tap.
You can decorate your broom by cutting star shapes out of silver colored cardstock and hanging them from the body of the broom.
With these easy to make decorations,
Halloween is sure to go off with a shriek!
