This is Halloween, everybody SCREAM!!

 ..In this town we call home

Everyone hail to the pumpkin song la,la,la

My attempt at corpse bride make up. 

3 times today Scarlett has made us watch the Jack skeleton (or skelington as she says it) film. She's watched is every day for the past week. So now I have the song on repeat in my head, especially when I'm trying to sleep at 2am.


Anyway I thought I'd share some of our Halloween crafts and decoration tips.


Firstly to decorating. I hate spending money on decorations for Halloween. Mainly because we have 7 family birthdays in October including Scarlett's so I'm usually skint by the time Halloween comes around. We go down the home made route usually and this year I prepared a few crafts to keep the kids quiet on the first day of school holidays and create some decorations too.

Skull Faces

This ones really simple. I pre cut out some skull faces from A4 white paper (the stuff you pinch from work). I then let the kids colour them in and hand them on the windows. These cast a great shadow on the windows during the day, then I leave a led candle on at night so you can see them back lit from the street. Super cheap and very effective.

Ghost Bunting

Again A4 white paper. Layer 4-5 sheets at a time, fold in half, cut out ghost shape and you have 8/10 ghosts. Then draw on simple silly faces for your kids to colour, or if they are older let them draw their own. String together with black wool. Done.

Hanging Bats

I cut out bat shapes from black card and let the girls cover them in glitter glue. I then suck them to the walls with blue tac and hung them from lights.

Scary Masks

These are great fun to make. Using card from a cereal packet or what ever you can get your hands on draw a shape of any Halloween character you want.
Then using free home furnishing catalogues, clothing catalogues or any other crap that get's put in your post box, cut out colour pieces for your mask.
I cut out brown triangle shapes from wooden flooring section for the wolf here. It looks a bit like fur from a distance and has lots of interesting shades.
I used green grass photos from a gardening magazine for the witch and cut into squares.
Glue all the pieces into place and cover with a layer for glue for durability. Once dry use a marker pen to add details. I also made purple hair for the witch out of some left over wool I had. These are great for parties as there's always someone (usually an adult) who turns up without a costume. The kids will make them wear these.

Baby Pinata

This will seem a bit of a random blog as I've not yet mentioned but our little-one is turning one very soon, so I'm in full party planning mode.

The theme of the party is yet to be revealed, however I've been racking my brains trying to think of party games for 15+ children ranging from 5 months old to 10 years. We have a bouncy castle booked but I wanted to add something a bit different to the usual pass the parcel. So I came up with this one, baby-friendly Pinata's. The idea of my older toddler trying to hit a box full of sweets with a stick around a load of babies did not fill me with joy, but this will hopefully fill them with joy.

These are pull Pinata's. Hopefully even the very little ones will have fun with these.

The finished baby pinata's ready to make a mess.

Essentially these are mostly toilet roll/ kitchen roll centres stuffed with crepe paper and toys, which you hang high above the children. The toys are tied with ribbon which when pulled will release the confetti and toy.

Firstly after collecting the rolls of different lengths and widths, I placed a paper end on the roll to stop the filling falling out. I cut a little slit to pass the ribbon through. The paper used is matching wrapping paper to the party theme.

I used 4 different papers which look good miss matched on each roll. I wrapped the rolls to completely cover. I then threaded the ribbon through the slit and tied it to a toy. I bought a load of party bag filler toys for only 15p - 25p each. Obviously only selecting light weight items in case they land on anyone. I part filled the roll with cut up crepe paper then placed in the toy. I topped the toys with paper to hide the toys inside.
Tip: I marked the inside of the roll to indicate whether the toy was one for a girl, boy or unisex. Therefore on the day I can make sure no boys get any butterfly hair clips and avoid any upset.

Filled tubes with long ribbon for pulling.

I then used a sharp pencil to make two holes in the top of the rolls to make a handle to hang the Pinata's.

The great thing about these is they cost less than £5 for all of them finished and when they are hanging they will add decoration to the venue.

Robot Bunting

Just a quick craft.

Some scraps of robot material bought online super cheap, some neon green cord and a sewing machine.

Cutting the material.I used the patern of the material to dictate the size of the bunting, as I had just bought the cheap scraps I wanted to get the best possible use out of them I could.

Once I'd sewn them on this is the finished result...quite effective on the day.