Great Ideas for Halloween Decorating

Halloween is a great 'holiday' for decorating. This article will have some great projects and ideas for decorating your home, and doing it without spending a lot of money. I will go through the steps on how to make a wooden pumpkin to hang on your house, tell you what you can purchase that doesn't cost a lot of money, and that will really add a lot to your decor, as well as a great pumpkin decorating idea!

The first project is a pumpkin face. (See photo) It is made from an old tree trunk. I had my friend 'slice' about a two inch thick piece off of an old tree trunk that was in my neighbors yard. Then I sanded down the really ruff parts, and believe me, there were a lot...chainsaws don't make for the nicest cuts! If you have an electric sander, that works as well. You can also trim off the bigger pieces with a jigsaw, if you have one handy. You don't have to sand it perfectly, it can look a little uneven; what you want to worry about are really ruff spots, or pieces that are sticking out. At this time, you will need to chisel out a small hole in whichever side is going to be the top.

Chisel the hole out on the TOP. It doesn't need to be very big, just enough to put a stem in there later. You can figure out what size to make your hole, when you figure out how thick your stem will be, and of course make the pumpkin's stem proportionate to the pumpkin too. I used a 'bunch' of twigs from my yard. I broke the twigs down so they were all about the same length, and tied a piece of raffia around the bottom of the twigs. I will tell you how to put this on later. Now normally you would treat any wood being used in an outside project, unless of course you are going to paint it, and with this project you are going to paint the entire piece, which in turn will protect it from the weather just fine. After I sand the wood I painted the entire piece orange. I used spray paint for this project. Spray paint makes it a lot easier to get into all the grooves.

While the orange paint is dying, you can start on making a stencil for the face. I just drew out different faces on pieces of paper, picked one that I liked the best, and cut it out to make a stencil. Place your stencil on the wood, making sure it is exactly where you want it, and also being careful that it is flat against the wood as well. A great tip for making sure this happens, is just to take some double stick tape and put it all around the edge of the cut out pieces. This way the paint can't get underneath. Then I used black spray paint, and sprayed the face on to the wood with my stencil. Carefully remove the paper, being very careful not to smudge your face too much.

The next thing I did was add a hanger on it. I used barbed wire, and attached it with two small eyelet hook, one on each side of the top. If you can't get your hands on barbed wire, any thick wire will work, you can even entwine two pieces together to make it look more decorative. You can even use an old wire hanger if you can't find anything else. Now you are ready to attach your 'stem' that was pout together earlier. You will need some kind of very tacky glue, super glue, or hot glue. Place the glue in to the hole you hollowed out, on the top of your pumpkin. Put a little more glue on the bottom of you twig bunch, and set into the hole. This will need to sit until the glue is completely dried.

Then I added a few strands of raffia to one end of the hanger, for a little decorative touch, and to match the raffia on the bottom of the stem. The last thing you need to do to this piece, is to spray the entire thing with a clear acrylic. You can find a spray can of this with the spray paint at your local hardware store. Before hanging your new pumpkin up, make sure that everything is completely dry. Follow the manufacturer's directions for paint drying times.

The next project is very easy, very cheap, and believe it or not, adds a lot to your Halloween decor. I am talking about the fake spiderwebs. Webbing runs between one dollar to five dollars a bag, depending on where you shop, and what size bag you get. I decorated my yard, and thought I was finished. When I looked at the decoration though, something was missing. I went to the store in search for the missing thing, and ended up buying a few bags of webbing. Turns out, that was it! For just a few bucks, this made a world of difference. I spread the webbing across my windows, (outside), and placed some big fake spiders in between pieces of overlapping webbing.

I live if Florida, and although I love to carve pumpkins, they always rot so fast in the warmer climate. I still carve pumpkins, but I can only display them for a few days at the most when they are carved. So I wait until a couple days before Halloween to do the carving. I do display other pumpkins though that aren't carved. I paint them. When they are not carved, they last longer. I use regular craft paint, (I have some outdoor craft paints that I like to use on the pumpkins that are going outside). I just paint cute little faces on them, nothing fancy, or you could paint 'BOO', "Happy Halloween', etc...Then what I like to do, is paint a coat of clear acrylic glaze over the entire pumpkin. It gives the pumpkin a wonderful shiny look, and I think it even makes the pumpkin last longer.

Another great decoration that hardly costs a thing, are those little plastic ghosts. They come in a package of twelve, and all you do is stuff some leaves, or old plastic store bags, in to their heads. Then you wrap the tie tie that comes in the package around the 'neck'. All you have to then is find somewhere to hang them. The come with longer tie ties as well, to hang them with. This is a cute idea, because they move with the wind, and sort of look like they are flying. The package of twelve runs you no more then two to three bucks, and they look wonderful!

This should get you on your way to a thrifty, and creative Halloween 'haunted' yard! Use your imagination, and you can come up with many more thrifty ideas too! Happy haunting!