Homemade Halloween Part 1

My Dad loved Christmas. And Bonfire night, I remember indoor sparklers, home made celery soup and  my Dad in the garden with a bucket of sand on standby for any stray fireworks that might have set light to the conifers. But for reasons unknown to me, he hated Halloween, and on the 31st of October every year he made us turn all the lights off and sit in the darkness so Trick or Treaters would think we were out and not knock on our front door. But now, I live in my own house and live by my own rules Halloween is party time! Wahoo!

So we are having a little Halloween Tea Party for the local kiddiewinkles on the 1st November and I have been busy getting the decorations up for the last few days. I know Halloween is still 2 weeks away but since I finished my last job 2 weeks ago I have plenty of spare time for such endeavours. There are 2 places to source great (and cheap) decorations and ideas. Firstly 'Google images' (amazing) and secondly, Poundland. I know quite a few people who won't step foot into a Poundland, and I admit, I did feel a bit like that before I stopped working properly, but it is so mind boggling awesome! Seriously. I never buy Fairy Fabric Softener, Finish Dishwasher Tablets or Haribos from anywhere else. Anyway, here are a few pictures of the decorations so far. Still need a better camera though.

I cut out some bat shapes from some black card (20 sheets of A4 for £1), folded their wings, stuck on boggly eyes/buttons for eyes and blue tacked them to the wall.

My son and I made this Pumpkin bunting by splodging orange paint onto the crease of a piece of A4 and folding it together. When the paint was dry we stuck green feathers on for stalks.

I cut some (crap but easy) ghost shapes and a sort of skeleton from more of the black card and stuck it to the kitchen windows. 

£1 bat hanging from lampshade.

My favorite purchase. A pack of 12 card "bats". I guess that's why they were in Poundland, I'm pretty sure these are spiders. I have stuck these all over the place.

Black paint hand prints and more boggly eyes.

A rather expensive Jielde lamp, bought when I had a job obvs,  makes a wonderful 'ghost stand'.  This was actually the most expensive decoration and was £5 from Wilco's (my other new favorite shop), but would be very cheap to make yourself. A £1 mask and some muslin or an old sheet would have the same affect. I think this particular decoration might have to come down for the party though. My son is not phased by it but I think the gaggle of 6 year old girls coming over might not feel the same way.

£1 hanging skeleton with unfortunate position of light switch.

I LOVE this. Some of the card "bats" strung onto a stick from the garden.

Free mini bunting printable from www.seshalynparty.com, printed out, cut up and stuck on some string.

Free food picks and straw labels printables from www.seshalynparty.com stuck onto some picks and straws I had at the back of my cupboard.

2 packs of £1 rubber snakes attached to a ring I made of pipe cleaners. It would be more stable on a ring made from a wire coat hanger but I couldn't be bothered to find one.

Dirty £1 rat in the bog roll basket.

2 x honeycomb pumpkins and 2 x lantern pumpkins each £1 a pack!

Finally, for the time being, some printed skull bunting I made by cutting a skull shape out of an old sponge and printing it onto more of the black card.

Until next time . . . .