Saturday 29 October 2016

Easy DIY Halloween Decorations


Hi everyone, as you know Halloween is absolutely my most favourite time of the year and I love to go all out, with costumes, decorations and binge watching some of my favourite horror films.  Every year as soon as it gets to the beginning of October, I love seeing all the Halloween stuff in the shops, but even though they seem to get better and better things every year, by the time you've bought just a few decorations it quickly starts getting expensive!  So one thing I love to do (as with my costumes), is make Halloween decorations myself.


So a couple of weeks ago I went on to Pinterest, and wow the amount of amazing decoration ideas!!  Some are a lot more time consuming and costly than others, but I also found absolutely loads of really simple and easy ones too.  So here's a few that I tried out, there's a couple of slightly more time consuming ones, but the others are really quick and easy and all of them will cost you hardly anything and best of all, I think with very little effort they look really cool and creepy :-)



First off Spooky Hanging Decorations For these you'll just need a few sheets of halloween-theme coloured card, ie orange, white, black etc, some scissors, pencil and glue, as well as a small reel of clear nylon thread.
All I did for these, was search for specific Halloween templates on google images, resize them on photoshop and printed them out just on to basic white printer paper.  I then cut out the templates, drew around them on to the appropriate coloured card and cut them out.  Then I just made a tiny hole at the top of each one, added a length of thread and pined them in the ceiling.  It's a good idea to vary the lengths of thread, this would look especially great with the bats.  Also there's loads of different shapes you could do like skulls, witches hats, broomsticks, candles or black cats etc!  I've included the templates that I used below, for you to use, just click on the two links and save the images.

Bat & Ghost
Pumpkin



Creepy Jars  for these you'll need two good size jam jars, I got these from Poundstretch.  You'll also need black and red paint, a roll of stretch bandage (20p from Wilko), some small plastic spiders (99p from Tesco) and a pack of eyeballs (also from
Poundstretcher).




These were so, so quick and easy and look really effective.  To start with I painted both lids with a couple of coats of black paint.  For the spider jar, I then took about half a reel of the stretch bandage and pulled it around a bit to make it look more webby, then pushed it into the first jar and just added the spiders.  I found it best to add a little glue to the spider's feet and undersides to help them stick and I also added one to the lid too.



The eyeball jar literally took me about 2 minutes, once the lid was done.  I just ¾ filled the jar with water, added all the eyeballs and then swirled in a tiny bit of red paint on a small brush and let it slightly colour the water, then I just made sure the lid was tight on and done!  Super easy :-)



Lacey Candles for these, all I used was a couple of empty toilet roll tubes, black paint, a small section of black lace, 2 small battery tealights and a piece of black card.


First off I painted both the cardboard tubes in black, one coat seemed to do the trick, then while they were drying I cut a section of black card (approx 6cm square) and cut a cross in the centre, then pushed the tip of the tealight up through the cross and trimmed off the little triangle bits so the light fitted in neatly.  After that, I added a thin line of glue around the top of one of the tubes and carefully led the tealight in the top of the tube, so the black card would stick to it.  Once it was dry, I just trimmed off the excess card and added the black lace around the tube.

For a nice added extra, I also found a couple of little clear pots (like the stacker pots you can get in a craft shop), I roughly painted them black and added some sheer ribbon and a bow just to add some colour and also to help the candles stand up. 



The light are ease to turn on and off too, just by turning the tube upside down and using a pen to reach inside and click the switch!



You may remember this next idea from my Halloween Party post last year, as I made them to add to our decorations.  Again, these were really easy but took a little longer as I had to sit and cut out all the images.  Like before I found the images on google and just printed them out.  Once they were cut out, I just glued them on to the plastic cups and added a tealight underneath, sorted!


And for possible my favourite item, the demonic mummified creepy doll This one took me roughly about an hour and a half in all.  I literally bought the cheapest doll I could find, this one was £2.50 in Tesco, I also used up about 2 and half reels of the stretch bandage and other than that I just used paint and a couple of pins.


The first thing I did was cut off the frilly part of the hood as I knew it would only get in the way, then I made a start of the face.  I mixed a small amount of black and white paint to get a soft grey shade and painted the entire face, I then made it slightly darker around the edges.  Then using a smaller brush and added dark grey to the lips and pure black on the eyes.  To add more detail, I then added a little line of red pain to the bottom of the right eye and pulled it down slightly to look like a tear of blood!  I also added a tiny bit of red paint to the corner of her mouth.  Then with a clean dry brush and lightly dabbed the brush in the dark grey shade that I'd made up and just lightly added speckles and scratched to her head and cheek, and the same with red paint.
Next it was time to add the bandages, I went round the legs and arms first, then the head then the body, I also had to use a lot of double sided sticky tape to help hold it in place, as well as a couple of pins for decoration.  Finally, using the dry brush again, I added a lot of dark grey, dark brown and black paint very lightly to various areas of the bandage to make it look dirty and dragged around, as well as a good bit on the bottom of her feet, for when she walks around at night!! :-)



I've never done anything quite like this before and I'm actually really happy with how she turned out, it honestly even creeps me out and I have to shut it in the cupboard over night lol
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For a few other ideas, why not try -

A spiderweb jar - just add a few stickers, some ribbon and a tealight.

Spider chain - just cut out a simple shape and string them up across a wall.

Giant letters - These are super easy, just print out some big letters either on coloured paper or as a template, add a large bow and hang them on a wall.

Spider trail - grab a cheap packet of plastic spiders and stick them in a little trail up a door or over a wall

Creepy old lamp - just throw some black lace or netting fabric over a table lamp add a spider or two, done!

Large creepy doll - why not go the extra mile and create a bigger doll, you could make her clothes all raggy and messy to add to the creepiness!

Spellbooks - you could either cover a few old books or make some up from card, paint the covers and add some spooky writing.  I think these look really cool and I'm really looking forward to making these up next year.

I'm really happy with how all my diy's turned out, why don't you give a few of them a try and tag tweet me your pics, I'd love to see them.





Until Next Time Stay spooky
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