Homemade Decorations for your Halloween Scene
Every year Halloween comes sneaking up. It is right after school has begun, but before what most consider the holiday season. It is only natural for people to think, “How can I make an amazing Halloween scene without breaking the bank?” The answer, like many projects call for, is your own creativity.
1. Grocery bag ghosts - Those white plastic bags you get from the grocery store always seem to pile up around the house. Instead of throwing them out, why not use them for decorations? First cut a square out of the bag as big or small as you want. Fill the middle with dry leaves. Bring the corners of the square together. Then, using string, wire or ribbon, tie the leaves into the ghost. The middle of the square is now the head, while the corners hanging down make up a body. You can now add faces to your ghosts using anything you want and display them. Adding more string to the head makes these a great thing to hang up in trees or around the house.
2. Grave stones - You could buy fancy ones at the store but making more personalized ones yourself is way more interesting. Take old cereal boxes and tape them shut. Paint with gray poster paint. Once dry, using black paint or markers you can add your own names or sayings to them. To the back of the boxes, you can tape a stick of some sort to push them into the ground with. A good stick to use would be a sharpened pencil, since after the holiday they could be used for writing once again.
3. A scarecrow - What would Halloween be without the iconic scarecrow? There are always little ones in the store, but most people have never made a real one before. First you need old clothes, Long pants and a long-sleeve shirt. Tie the sleeves and pant legs shut with twine. Attach the shirt and pants with the bottom of the shirt tucked into the pants using safety pins, or if you’re handy with a machine, sew them together. Then fill the body with hay. (Allergic? Those grocery bags could come in handy here too- plus, they make less of a mess.) The head is usually made with a burlap sack, but how many people have those around? An old pillow case is just as good. Fill it, and tie off the end. Attach it to the body using safety pins again. Add an old hat, draw on a face, and you have yourself a scarecrow. The body is easily sat in a chair, or tied to a tree or pole, to welcome people to your house.
4. Fake blood - At the store fake blood is usually pretty expensive. Anyone making a horror scene needs it to bring their living dead closer to life. Cornstarch blood is a good solution. Mix cornstarch and water to your desired consistency. Then add red food coloring. The gel kind is more concentrated and usually works better for this. You want a very dark red color. Then pour over whatever you want. The blood you made will usually last longer outside then store bought. Be careful: the food coloring will stain everything so don’t put it on your wedding-dress-turned-zombie-dress.
5. Jack o’lanterns – You do them every year. They’re messy and they rot way to soon after all that hard work is done. But most people won’t think Halloween complete without them. First cut down on mess by using a large trash bag as the carving surface. You still have to gut your pumpkins yourself. But the carving is the fun part.
There are hundreds of patterns online to choose from. Use a search engine to find one. Print it out and use it to carve out your favorite characters. Or go freestyle and make a masterpiece of your own. Once done, use a bleach solution over the whole pumpkin to make it last longer. Of course to look their best on Halloween pumpkins should only be carved a day or two in advance.
With just a little time and effort you can turn almost anything into a decoration. Just look around your house. Look in your basement or attic and think, “What can I do to make that fit into my Halloween scene?” Chances are you will come up with things you would never have imagined before!
