Homemade Halloween Decorations: Fun Creations to Give Your Home the Halloween Spirit

Anyone who has walked down the aisle of a grocery, department, or retail store lately has undoubtedly seen the huge selection of Halloween decorations for happy little haunters to use to decorate their homes. Anyone on a budget has also undoubtedly been haunted by an empty pocketbook after paying for very many of them. For those who have a bit of creativity, a great Halloween look can be had for much less money. Plus the added fun of creating these creatures will give you and your children countless memories to cherish from now on.

Project One: Paper Plate Pumpkins and Pals

These fun and easy creations can be made friendly or spooky to your child's taste. They can be hung from the ceiling, on the walls, in windows, or even from the trees outside.

Materials:

Orange Paper Plates

Black Construction Paper

Green Construction Paper

Green Curly Ribbon or Pipe Cleaner

Googly Eyes

Glue

Yarn

Scissors

Using the orange paper plates as the bases for these creations, begin by cutting jack o'lantern face shapes from black construction paper. Triangles are basic, easy and traditional, but you can certainly get as creative and detailed as you want. Glue the shapes on to the orange plate. Googly eyes can be added for extra effect with glue. Add a green construction paper stem to the top. Decorate both sides of the plate if both sides are orange. If not, glue two plates together back to back. Add some curly green ribbon or twisted pipe cleaner as vine, and your pumpkin pal is ready to shine. Punch a hole in the top and hang it from a window, wall, ceiling or tree. String several together for garland, or string them together vertically to hang from balconies or trees.

Variations: Use a sharpie or black marker instead of construction paper for the faces. Further, black plates and accordion-folded strips of black paper (and googly eyes!) can turn into spooky spiders. Hang them from the middle of the plate, and their legs will dangle dangerously... Or, green plates make great Frankenstein heads. Add some black yarn hair or construction paper hair, a face, a few scars, and your freaky Frankie is ready to frighten!

Project Two: Mummies on a Stick

These tasty terrors make a delightful centerpiece for a Halloween party or just for a spooky snack.

Hot dogs

Thin Popsicle sticks or wooden sticks found in the cooking section - avoid pointed ones

Refrigerated biscuit dough or bread stick dough

Cutting board

Knife

Cookie Sheet

Mustard

Ketchup

Toothpick

Floral Foam

Black, Green, Purple Crepe Paper

Glue

To begin with, flatten out the bread stick or biscuit dough, and cut into 1/4' to 1/2' wide strips of 6:-12" long on a clean cutting board. Next, take the hot dogs and lay them on a cookie sheet or waxed paper. Beginning at the bottom, roll the dough in a spiral pattern around the hot dog, leaving no gaps. This will be your mummy wrapping. When you get about 1 and 1/2" from the top, stop, and cut or tear your dough. Press it down to the other dough on the hot dog to seal. Leave a 3/4" portion of the hot dog showing. This will be the face. Begin wrapping above the face area, and wrap the rest of the hot dog in biscuit dough. Take a Popsicle stick or wooden stick and push gently into the bottom of the hot dog, at least 1". Repeat this for all hot dogs. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet according to the biscuit or bread stick dough instructions. Remove the mummies from the oven, and allow to cool. While the mummies are cooling, you can make the base for your centerpiece.

To make the base, take the dry floral foam (or Styrofoam) and coat it with glue. Layer it with different colors of crepe paper or tissue paper to cover all foam. (You can add accessories such as cardboard gravestones or twisted, pipe cleaner trees for even more effect.) Once the glue is dry and the centerpiece is finished, you may poke the cooled Mummies into the foam. Place them in the center of the table only shortly before serving. Let the kids use toothpicks dipped in mustard or ketchup to create the mummy faces, and then watch as they enjoy their delicious creations!

Variation: If the kids are old enough, let them help you cook them and decorate the base! Make sure you supervise all children carefully when cooking or using sharp objects. These can be made without the sticks as well, and laid flat on a plate next to gravestone cookies, or messages written in mustard or ketchup!

Project Three: Pumpkin Pals

Materials:

3 Dimensional Fabric Paint or Acrylic Paint

Yarn

Scissors

Hot glue and glue gun

Pumpkins of Various Sizes

Hair barrettes or ribbons, other accessories

To begin with, select a pumpkin. Use paint to paint a face on the pumpkin. 3-D fabric paint works best for this, but acrylic can work as well. After giving your pumpkin a colorful face, create hair with yarn. An easy way to do this is to wrap loops of yarn around a piece of cardboard about 2 and 1/2 times the length of the hair that you want. Wrap it until there is a very generous amount, at least 50-100 times, depending on the size of your pumpkin. Remove the yarn from the cardboard, tie a small piece of yarn around the center of the bundle very tightly, and cut the loops on both ends. Hot glue the wig to the pumpkin's stem, and trim into the shape and style desired with scissors. Make sure to allow the hot glue to dry before doing this step. Use hair clips, ribbons, beads, or other accessories to finish off the look. These pumpkin pals last longer than jack o' lanterns, and are much less messy and slimy to clean up! Let your pumpkin pals greet your guests on the doorstep, table, or anywhere else.

Variation: Curly hair can be created using curly ribbon or by crocheting yarn into ringlets. For super tight, tiny curls, begin at the bottom of the strand of "hair" and separate the strands that make up the yarn. Holding on to one and pulling it down, pinch the other strands and push them tightly up the strand you are holding down. Trim the leftover strands that hand loose. This takes a long time, but certainly gives a full and curly head of hair.

Project Four: Spider Webs and Spiders

White or gray yarn

Nails or Staple Gun

Three sided wooden frame (can be two posts and a roof, a door frame, etc.)

Plastic spiders

Nail or staple three pieces of white or gray yarn into the three sided frame in the following manner:

Beginning at the top of the frame and on the left, staple one end of the first piece of yarn. Stretch it to the bottom right of the frame, and staple.

For the second piece, begin at the top right, and stretch to the bottom left, and staple.

For the final piece of the framework, stretch it straight across the middle from left to right where the two other pieces of yarn intersect. There should now be a three way intersection. With the skein or ball of yarn, begin in the middle and tie a small knot to attach the yarn to the framework. Working in an angular and counter-clockwise motion, begin to weave the spider web, making small knots as you go fairly often to keep the web's shape secure. Do this until the web is the desired size and shape. It may be necessary to add in some additional cross pieces to achieve the desired look. This is the creator's discretion.

Add some plastic spiders, and let the fun begin!

Variation: If you use this project in a doorway, you can cover the entire door to block off an area you do not want guests to enter. You can also add yarn wrapped prey (small toy dinosaurs, action figures, etc.) to make the web appear more horrific for an older crowd. Giant paper-mache spiders or the paper plate spiders mentioned above make a nice accessory for this project.

Tips for Inexperienced Crafters:

Kids have more fun when they get to do it. Crafts don't have to be picture perfect! It's about the fun. Make sure to supervise kids, especially little ones, with small pieces like googly eyes. Pipe cleaners can poke, and glue guns can burn, so be careful! Read the instructions and preheat the oven to avoid overcooked mummies with undercooked wrapping. the important thing is to have fun, and take lots of pictures. You can use the pictures of making the projects, along with the finished look to create a scrapbook page. Now, get started! Halloween is almost here!