Homemade, Inexpensive Halloween Decorations

If you are a Halloween person, then decorating your house is a project you look forward to. But these days, when prices are high and budgets are tight, buying the decorations is often not an option. You've made a homemade costume but now, how do you decorate?

You create and design your own! It isn't hard, and very inexpensive so why not dress up your house to the scariest or "autumn-ist" as you like!

Here are 8 craft projects that you can make and create to fit your Halloween house decor.

1. Make your own Pumpkins! This is so cute and what a way to "hide" what you need and use what you have for decoration! What you'll need: Your extra rolls of toilet paper, orange tissue paper, brown paper, green paper and pipe cleaners. Take 2-3 sheets of the tissue paper and keep them layed together. Set your roll of toilet paper in the center. Gently, pull the sides of the tissue paper up to the top of the toilet paper roll and gently again, stuff the ends of the tissue paper INSIDE the toilet paper roll. Doing one side at a time seems to work best. Just look at what you are doing and make sure all the "pleats or folds" of the paper are either in a straight line/fold or slightly angled to show the indents on a real pumpkin.

To make the stem, use brown cardstock and cut to the length of stem you want and then roll the paper up. Crinkle it some, twist it to make it resemble the shape of a stem. Bend it a little and then insert it into the roll of the toilet paper. To make the stem, using green cardstock, cut out in shape of a leaf and glue pipecleaner onto the back side of the leaf. Once completely dried, gently bend the leaf around and insert it into the toilet paper roll. Voila! Instant pumpkins! Make a dozen! When Halloween is over, unwrap your pumpkins and use them!

2. Use Gourds instead of pumpkins - they last much longer and have such odd shapes, anything goes with these guys! They come in so many different colors and shapes, your imagination is the only limits! You can get a large round one and paint the face on it. You can get 2 smaller ones and stack them on top of each other to make a head and a body. Get gourds with stems on them. Leave the stem until you are sure you don't want to use it, then break it off. Stems are great on the "head" part of the figure.Long gourds make for a "tall" character, smaller round gourds make for a small bunch of "kids" in the display.

Materials to use to decorate: Absolutely anything from nature - pine needles, pine cones, leaves, branch parts, seeds, rocks, just walk your yard (or the neighborhood!) and pick up what looks interesting! Leaves are great for hair, rocks and acorns are great for eyes. Nuts and their shells have amazing uses. Beans, seeds, sticks and stems. The local craft store will also have tons of great trinkets you can use! To asemble: A glue gun is your best friend in the craft project. Also use toothpicks to secure things.

3. Kleenex Tissue Ghosts: This is an old time favorite. You will need 2 kleenex tissus, a short piece of string or embroidery floss and black felt-tip pen. Cut lengths of the string or embroidery floss about 5 inches long. Take one tissue and roll it into a ball in your hand, gently but firmly. Once a ball is formed, take the other piece of tissue and place it over the ball. Gently, smooth the tissue down over the ball to form the ghosts head. Place the "neck" of the ghost on a length of string and tie the string around the "neck" and pull it tightly. This "fluffs" the ghost's "gown". Using the felt tip marker - draw your choice of facial features! To hang the ghosts - using same string or floss, cut a length for the place you want to hang the ghost. Tie the string again, around the "neck" of the ghost and hang where you please!

4. Insect Punchies: Local craft stores (or if you are a scrapbooke you might already have one!)carry craft punches. An ant and spider punch are the perfect additions to your Halloween holiday decorations! Just punch them out of black cardstock and sprinkle them around! You can often find "glitter" paper to punch them out of which would just pick up a bit of light to make the bugs shimmer! You can also glue or tape these little critters to the inside of a lamp shade and when the lamp is turned on... bugs will appear!

5. Insect Stickers - Get some bug stickers and stick them on the windows! Window clings are similar but sometimes you just want the little bugs crawling around! You could also use these stickers on a glass or pitcher of drink. Yikes! There's a spider in my drink!

6. Buy some of those pumpkin shaped sugar candies. A bag is only about a bucka nd you can just set these pumpkins around! Or line them up along the fireplace mantel or window sill. You can also get black cats and even candy corn to add to the Halloween theme!

7. If you have or can get, glass jars with lids - fill them with colored water and put a plastic insect in them to "float" around as they would be in a mad scientist's lab!

8. Pumpkins come in all shapes and sizes these days. A large array of white pumpkins mixed with orange and yellow pumpkins.. use large to tiny in size, add some gourds and decorate with some dried leaves from your tree in the back yard. Throw on a plastic spider or gummy rat and you have a really nice outdoor decoration spread to welcome the tricker or treaters. If you want to make it a more cheery theme, add some pretty riboon bows around the pumpkins or on the stems and some dried "indian" corn. What a spectacular scene!

9. For a more "fall/autumn" theme - walk the neighborhood looking for dried leaves that have fallen from trees. Even pinecones, acorns or interestingly shaped branches or twigs. Collect the biggest and nicest and fill a large barrel or basket with them. This makes a great entry way decoration or even, no a smaller version, a really nice center piece.