How? By making them together. It is easy to prepare a house for the upcoming spooky season without breaking the bank. Some of the best decorations are simple and made from common household items.
In these days of increasing consumerism, it is good to return to something simple, even in decorations. “The key is to understand that simple doesn’t imply spartan,” writes designer, author, teacher, and photographer Marco Pasanella in Living in Style Without Losing Your Mind. “Rather, it means have what you need in order to make your house a home. No less. And no more.”
The same is true of decorating for any season. Decorations with real meaning and history behind them, as opposed to something plopped onto a table because it is trendy, make each season special and a house into a real home.
Tissue Ghosts
This is perhaps the simplest Halloween decoration to be made, but it is still effective.
Items needed:
- Tissues
- String or white twist ties
- Take one tissue and wad it up.
- Wrap another tissue around it.
- Tie a piece of string or wrap a twist tie around the outer tissue, under the wad.
Paper Plate Pumpkins
These decorations require some adult supervision during the creative process, and hopefully one or both parents will decide it is too much fun to miss and decide to join in.
Items needed:
- Paper plates
- Orange craft paint
- Black craft paint
- Black construction paper
- Glue stick
- Paintbrushes
- Paint a paper plate orange. Let it dry. (Tip: Whilst waiting on the first to dry, start on a second.)
- Paint a jack-o-lantern face (smiling or scary) on the plate – eyes, nose, mouth.
- Cut out a rectangle from the black construction paper.
- Glue it onto the top of the plate for a stem.
As Pasanella wrote: “Truly simple interiors allow for everything necessary, but nothing more.” This also applies to decorations for the interiors. These paper plate pumpkin jack-o-lanterns can be as elaborate or as simple as one desires.
Easy Black Cats
It would not be the Halloween season without some black cats lurking around on shelves, hanging as a mobile, or tucked in amongst an arrangement of seasonal gourds.
Items needed:
- Cookie cutter in the shape of a cat with an arched back
- Black construction paper or poster board
- Neon orange marker
- Scissors
Seasonal cookie cutters are available most everywhere, even in dollar stores, and should not be expensive or planned for cooking, as they will be traced around with pen.
- Place a cat cookie cutter on the black construction paper or poster board.
- Trace around the cookie cutter with a neon orange marker. Vary tracing inside and outside, for a slight change in size of the cats. Repeat until the sheet of paper or poster board is filled.
- Cut out the tracing. It’s OK to leave all or parts of the orange neon marker trace marks visible. For the poster board, cut a square around each tracing, then cut the cat tracings out. That makes it easier than trying to cut one at a time from such a large sheet of paper.
Pasanella quotes Albert Einstein as saying: “Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Making Halloween decorations together not only saves money, but brings a family together in a simple way that sitting around watching television together cannot.
And it is OK to mix homemade decorations with affordable small pumpkin-like gourds and decorative cornstalks available at grocery and craft stores. Creativity comes in not only making the decorations, but in displaying them.
Source:
- Living in Style Without Losing Your Mind, by Marco Pasanella, Simon & Schuster, 2000.
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