You could spend hundreds of dollars decorating for Halloween using store-bought decorations or you could use your creativity and save that money. Here are several ideas to get you started.
But before we get started, here’s a shopping list of supplies that you’ll need to make these Halloween party decorations:
- Plastic spiders
- Ice trays
- Quart size plastic container
- Food color
- Orange juice
- Plastic worm
- Empty plastic milk or water gallon containers
- Clear or white pebbles
- Small flashlights or string lights with a white cord
- Teracota plant saucer
- Black paint
Plastic Spiders in Ice Cubes
Wash plastic spiders in soapy water and rinse well. Place one spider in each ice cube section. Freeze. Another alternative is to buy bigger spiders. Wash and rinse. Fill a round quart-size container half full of ice cubes. Place three or four spiders on top of the ice cubes. Fill with water to the top of the ice cubes. Freeze. Then fill to the top of the container with more ice cubes and water. Freeze again. This keeps the spiders from floating to the top. Place the ice cubes in glasses or the large ice cube in a punch bowl.
Muddy Ice Cubes
Mix red, yellow, orange, green and purple food coloring in orange juice to make a mud brown color. Freeze in ice cube trays. For an added touch, add plastic worms to each cube.
Boo Bottles
Easy, peasy and cheap as in almost free. Remove the labels from empty gallon containers of milk or water. Draw on ghost faces on the containers in black using paint or markers. Fill with a layer of clear or white pebbles to weight the containers down so they won’t blow away. Stop there or add a touch of lights. Wrap small flashlights that only cost about a dollar with beige or white masking tape. Widen the neck of the gallon container so the flashlight barely fits in with the light shining down and the switch at the top. Use a bit more masking tape to fasten the flashlight securely. Or fill the containers with Christmas mini-lights on a white cord (a green cord shows through the container and ruins the effect.
Spooky Mini Garden
Paint a terracotta plant saucer black. Fill with moss, and rocks Place small succulents here and there among the rocks and moss. Add in artificial crows, a skeleton and skulls. Top the saucer with a glass lid to enclose your spooky garden. The succulents will live for a week or two without additional watering.
Bloody Napkins and Tablecloth
This is messy and can stain so do this somewhere clean up is easy, say the backyard. Cut napkin-size squares from an old white sheet. Fill a spray bottle with double strength red kool Aid. Don’t add sugar you just want the color. Fill a squirt bottle with the red Kool aid as well. Spray and drip the “blood” on the napkins and white sheet.
Harrowing & EASY Halloween DecorationS
Turn items you probably already have in the house into cute but cheap Halloween decorations. Not only are these ideas cheap but they don’t take all that much time.
Egg Carton Bats
Spray paint cardboard egg cartons black – inside and out. Cut a section that has three egg depressions. Turn upside down. The middle hump (was an egg depression when right-side up is the head of the bat. Glue two googly eyes in the middle of the humb. The humps on each side are the bat wings. Hot glue fishing wire to the back of the head.
Log Jack-O-Lanterns
Use landscaping logs from the gardening department for small jack-o-lanterns and larger round logs you find in the forest for bigger jack-o-lanterns. The smaller logs should be cut into sections from 4 to 6 inches tall. The larger logs from 12 to 15 inches tall. Spray paint orange. Find branches that are stem shaped — wider at the bottom and narrower at the top. Spray paint the stems black. Glue to the top of the log. Paint faces on the logs in black.
Mummy Doors
Cut sheets of cheesecloth into 8 inch strips. You can also use old white sheets for this. Wrap the door crisscrossing some of the strips. This works best with two people one on either side of the door. Before the last wrapping, add two large white circles with black centers as the eyes of the mummy.
Lollypop Ghost
These are so easy and cheap you could hand them out as treats on Halloween. Use round ball-shaped lollypops. Cut two squares of white paper or cloth about 4 inches square. Place the squares on top of the lollypop. Tie with black ribbin right under the lollypop. Draw a ghost face with a black marker. You’re done.
Balloon Spider Web
Blow up the balloons. Spray with adhesive or paint with white glue. Wrap the balloons in white string crisscrossing but leaving lots of space between the string to resemble a spider webs. Spray or paint again with glue. Let thoroughly dry. Pop the balloon. The string web should remain in place. Glue several spiders to the outside of the web.
Ghost Doll
A little tricky but worth the effort. And they’re cheap to make. Place a baby doll in a sitting position with its arms straight out. A vinyl or plastic doll with no hair works best for this. Soak cheesecloth in a heavy starch solution. Wring out. Drape the cloth around the doll, molding it the head and around the arms and legs. Let dry. When you remove the doll the cloth retains the doll’s shape for an eerie looking ghost.