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.

Robot Party Fancy Dress Costume Ideas

This Sunday we attended Gray's 1st birthday party.

So during the week me and Scarlett had lots of fun digging around our recycling bin and creating a fancy dress costume for her and Millie.

Initially I had the idea of sending the kids as Wall-e and Eve but after spending quite a bit of time making Scarlett's Eve costume, she decided it wasn't girlie enough and refused to wear it. I was a bit pissed off to be honest but you can't force them to wear something they really don't want to without them being bloody miserable, and you're not supposed to be miserable at a birthday party. So I caved in and we made a new costume, together this time.

 Eve costume:

To make the Eve costume I bought a cheap bullet bin, 60l to fit Scarlett in and used a knife to cut out the bottom and arm holes. I then used coloured paper and double sided tape to add the details. The arms were cut out from cardboard and stuck on with clear tape. 

I also then lined the arm holes and leg holes with some scrap fabric filled with wadding and glued in place, this was to cover any sharp edges.

I stuck with the idea of putting Millie in a Wall-e costume and this is the result. 

Wall-e Costume

To make the Wall-e costume:

• 1  large box
• foil lid from take away box
• 6 egg box
• brown paper (this was actually from a parcel I'd received the day before)
• 2 party cups
• ribbon for the head band
• yellow paint
• black marker
• piece of card
• Sticky tape

Once you have found a large enough box, cut out a head, leg and arm holes. This one was to fit over my baby so I did leg holes at the front too so she could sit down comfortably.

Cover the box in brown paper. Paint yellow. 

Whilst the paint is drying cut diagonally across your egg pot so you have two triangle shapes for teh wheels. Wrap a strip of brown paper around the wheel to make tracks. Tape to the side of the dry box. Onto a foil take away box lid I used a black marker to add Wall-e details. I then added track marks, panel marks, dents and detail to the dry painted box which really bought it to life. 

For the eyes I cut out two circles of card and stuck them on the inside of the cups. I also added two strips of card to the top of the eyes to give the distinctive Wall-e brow. I finally glued the eyes to a length of ribbon so I could tie the eyes on Millie's head like a head band. See below photo.

Headband

Pink Robot Costume

(Scarlett's costume take 2)

This was a proper rummage in the recycling job. We used baby milk powder boxes for legs with some bubble wrap, a toy box with the clear window for the tummy, party cups and an old toy spring for the robot ears and lots of bottle tops ect for decoration. Lastly pink paint, lots of pink paint!

We had a great time at the party and Scarlett enjoyed posing for lots of photos with the birthday space boy. 

Happy Birthday Gray!!!