By Joan Lang
Cast a Spell
Getting into the Halloween spirit doesn't mean you have to break the bank buying decorations. Instead, treat decorating as the perfect opportunity to spend time crafting with the kids. With just a few store-bought materials and items you already have on hand, you can assemble these house decorations that are creative, charming and a blast to make!
Photo: © Kate Sears
Ma and Pa Pun'kin
It's American Gothic, scarecrow style, this well-turned-out couple of stuffed shirts…and hats and dress and overalls. Use wooden tomato stakes to add structure to straw-filled clothes and to serve as a "neck" for jack-o'-lantern heads. Drag out a rocking chair, prop Ma in a pail of sand, and your front porch is ready for arrivals.
Click here for how-to instructions
Photo: © Kate Sears
Jack Be Little
Small carved pumpkins make perfect accent pieces wherever you decide to display them-like these in a faux cast iron planter created with black spray paint. Get your kids involved in the carving designs, but with all that straw around, don't even think of having them use candles for these!
Photo: © Kate Sears
Get creative with your carving by using one of these pumpkin patterns.
The Bell Jar
Serve up a helping of raven under glass with craftsstore crows and a real or faux nest under a glass hurricane. Nevermore, nevermore!
Photo: © Kate Sears
Golden Delicious
Make these Apples Aglow by hollowing out the season's crisp apples about an hour before guests arrive (rub cut edges with lemon so they don't brown). Then drop in tealights and strike a match when the doorbell rings.
Click here for how-to instructions
Photo: © Kate Sears
Bats Are Flying
Create this Batty Centerpiece with black and dark brown construction paper (trace our bat pattern in the back of the book or draw freehand). Use a hole punch and bright orange paper to make the eyes; make fangs from white paper. Attach to clothespins and let them fly on a backyard branch in a weighted, be-mossed bucket.
Click here for how-to instructions
Photo: © Kate Sears
Safety Lights
The growing popularity of realistic battery-operated and rechargeable LED candles means you never have to worry about lighted jack-o'-lanterns, especially indoors, leaving you free to get monstrously creative with your decorating scheme.
Photo: © Kate Sears
Treat Yourself
Fill pottery crocks, cups and bowls with little nibbles-black licorice sticks, candy pumpkins and other assorted small confections-and scatter them around on side tables for guests to snack on. Don't forget the plastic spiders and petite gourds!
Photo: © Kate Sears
Clean Sweep
Two paper sandwich bags, the outer one shredded into partial strips, make cunning Broom Party Favors when they're filled with candy and cinched around a stick with raffia cord.
Click here for how-to instructions
Photo: © Kate Sears
Signs of the Times
Use crafts-store rub-on transfers to create Scary Signs as placecards, buffet-table identifiers or just for decorating fun. Carefully burn around the edges, then glue to a black overlay to complete the morbid effect.
Click here for how-to instructions
Photo: © Kate Sears
Original article appeared on WomansDay.com.
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