Nearly everything you see here was made and not purchased. Including candy, I may have spent 7 Euros. (I even used candy that was already in the house.)
This was my front window this year. It turned out to be quite the spectacle and a lot of passerby's took pictures of witchy me and my window. Halloween isn't all that popular here in Belgium, but in my tiny little village, they are putting it on the map!
Here is how I got the look. For the best effect, I hung up a white sheet behind it all, as you can see in the photo. I placed a bunch of candles at various layers and propped up my silhouettes I made from images I got from Pinterest. You can find them by clicking here.
I sketched out the three images on a huge box that I cut, painted it black, then cut it out with an exact-o knife. It wasn't perfect, but from the street you couldn't tell at all! If you don't think you can draw this yourself, then download an image and project it on to your surface.
Another task I set to, were these toilet roll, scary eyes with glow stick inserted, then tucked into the bushes. It was a total flop! For one, the neighbourhood kids stole them out of the bushes only a couple of minutes after I placed them there and you couldn't really see them at all anyway. All of that work for a terrible effect!
At least the kids got some glow sticks out of it all! Hehehe...
Of course, a scarecrow is always in order. Belgians are not familiar with them and it freaks out my neighbour every year. That's worth it alone! LOL! For my scarecrow, I use my own clothes and stuff them with plastic bags. That way if it gets wet, it's no big deal.
I took that brownish plant pot and filled it with gummy candy so that when the kids stuck their hands in there it felt really creepy. I'll definitely do that again next year! They loved it! Don't let them look in the pot. Watch their faces. Priceless!
This is always an easy costume. Just throw on your apron and chef hat and give them a couple of utensils. Hey! Not my vintage rolling pin! I still use that! Hehehe...
JJ just HAD to be Luigi from Luigi's Mansion. JJ has Autism and typically does NOT wear hats or costumes of any kind. So, this year was an absolute treat that he wanted to dress up. I only had 2 days to come up with something and around these parts, you don't just walk into a store and buy a fabulous costume. Just some jeans, his brother's green t-shirt, my army hat with a paper L adhered, some white gloves, black eyeliner moustache and a 5 gallon water bottle turned vacuum! Shoo!
Yo! JJ! XYZPDQ! LOL!
Are your kids total Mine Craft zombies?! Liam wanted to be an Enderman. After finding out what this was, we went right for the closet and just grabbed all of his black clothes and he borrowed a couple pair of his father's socks forces hands and feet. Then we headed out to the garage and found a box to fit his nog'n, painted it black and pasted on the blue paper. All Liam's work here! I just cleaned up the mess! This kid's got the perfect body for an Enderman. Long and skinny!
My costume was a breeze. I'm the witch with the grey streaks. I bought the wig and hat at the Action shop for under 5 Euros, ravaged my closet for all of the black stuff and put on some heavy eye make up.
I made some witchy boots, which didn't take that long to make. Washi taped the aluminium foil to my boots, so that I could wear them again, fashioned the foil into this shape, then took masking tape and made it more rigid, though not nearly rigid enough and painted black with craft paint. You have to be really careful and they are hard to walk in, too. More reinforcing is definitely necessary if you need to wear your boots for a long time. If you are only using them for decoration, this is great!
My broom was a delight to make. I took the dog for a walk and gathered some branches from the neighbourhood and used a long bamboo shaft my neighbour gave me. I simply zip tied the branches around the bamboo, then wound a natural string around to cover it up. I wrapped some more glam orange ribbon and purple...chiffon? on there to make this nice bow. I used good ole curling ribbon, knoted the bottom and added some beads for some more glamour, then glue gunned that nifty black cat in the middle of the ribbon.
Take strips of your ribbon or fabric, fold a little over the top and glue gun it to your broom. Do this all of the way around your broom.
I tied a matching ribbon around the top and added another bead kitty to the centre of that, too. Don't forget the purple ribbon wrapped all around the stick of the broom. Matches my hat!
We wanted to have a craft for the kids who were from 5-9 years old. In the tutorial I found, they used paper plates cut in half, then painted them black. Only you can't buy paper plates just anywhere in Europe. Hehehe... So I took rigid card stock, made a huge circle, cut it in half, then glue gunned it together around the circular part,leaving the flat, line across the top open to insert the candy. I took two different size circle punches and punched out the white and the black of the eyes. Remember, the white has to be bigger than the black. The kids glued on their eyes themselves. You could also use googly eyes which would have been really cool, too.
The kids glued the already cut out spider's legs to the back of the spider, punched holes in the top corners and we helped them string the curling ribbon through, so they could hang up their treat bags.
Here is what it should look like. This picture is where I found the idea. Click on it to see it and many more craft ideas!
Another fun project that the kids really loved to play was this pumpkin, bean bag toss I made, again from a big old box, donated from my dearest neighbour. It was a mess. I cut it, then turned it inside out. Used an idea I got from Pinterest, again and made it more fun. The bean bags were just cut out squares of fabric, lentil beans poured in the middle then tied at the top with raffia. It literally took us 10 minutes to make the bean bags.
My hubby didn't get pictures of the game behind this one. Do you see the lovely witch hats? Those are simply styrofoam cones, with black paper wrapped around. We cut out some black circles of paper, glued them to the board, glued the hats on top of that, added the coloured square with black centre to look like a buckle and glued on a couple of extra stars. That's it! A great ring toss game was made.
Here's the image I used from Pinterest to make our board. My Halloween Board on Pinterest is full of all kinds of ideas for Halloween. Decorating, food, snacks, games, costumes...I'm taking all kinds of notes for next year and I'm going to take this pumpkin bean bag toss and make it real nice so I can put it in my window next year. I'll place some small candles in there, too.
We made all of our stuff super rigid so that we can keep using them year after year. I hope you enjoyed this special holiday edition of The Cherry On Top. Come back again for more inspiration and fun on a dime.
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