Homemade Halloween

Without doubt, Halloween is my favourite festival. You get the opportunity to festoon the house with crazy decorations; dress up and enjoy an abundance of goodies. Even better, unlike other major holidays, it doesn’t require elaborate meals or gift buying. For me, it is the ideal combination of quirky fun with no stress.

The only problem is in trying to avoid making my carbon footprint any bigger. So, the challenge I set myself was to make my Halloween plastic free and ideally only use resources that I already had. What I was delighted to discover was that not only was this possible, but added to the enjoyment of my preparations.

What follows are some ideas that you might like to adapt for your Halloween celebrations.

Decorations

No-one knows how to decorate better than the Americans and Halloween decorations are often on a cinematic scale. The pumpkin carved hobbit house above is just one example of the artistic ingenuity and playfulness that so perfectly fits this festival. Such things are well beyond my capabilities, but I can still have fun with paper and scissors.

Silhouettes of spiders, ravens and bats make great decorations. I copied the above free-hand from an image I found on the Internet, but you could just as easily print one off and cut it out.

Paper cutting

Inspired by a new paper cutting book, I also attempted some fun little spider webs on a variety of papers. I attached these to the window with blue tack and then added a few black spiders. The little bat garland was cut out of crepe paper – using the same method as for making little paper chain people. Just remember to always leave a fold for joining.

I used a different form of paper cut for a card for my husband. This method is called kirigami – a sort of origami with scissors. The outline was pre-printed on the paper, so I can take no credit for it, but it would not be difficult to make your own. Simply fold your paper in half, sketch your design leaving a clear fold mark that you don’t cut. Attach this to a piece of folded card in a strong contrast colour (making sure not to glue your design) and then gently lift the design away and fold so that it is pressed against the card sides when flat and ‘pops up’ when opened.

Origami gift boxes

I’m not sure how many little trick-or-treaters we will have this year, but I am sure that I want them to be safe. Normally, I would fill a Halloween bag and let them dig in, but with Covid concerns, I thought I needed something more individual. So I hit upon the idea of filling little containers with sweets and passing them out. It would also make their gifts a little more special.

My first idea was to make witches’ hats cones and then I decided upon origami boxes in Halloween colours, though either would work perfectly. I’ve added little handles to finish them off. If you’d like to know how to make them, I’ve included a link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdKUkslqwHo Or if you fancy the witches hats, here’s a fun tutorial: https://www.u-createcrafts.com/witch-hat-party-cone-tutorial-free/

Now all I have to do is fill and pass them out. Unfortunately, for hygiene reasons, I will have to give wrapped sweets, but as that is all the waste I shall be creating, I don’t feel too bad.

That done, I can look forward to making pumpkin soup and other Halloween goodies and then start setting my mind to the next big festival. Post Halloween, talking of Christmas is now allowed.