Friday, October 28, 2011

Easy DIY Halloween Decorations

This year, I have decided that I'm decorating for the holidays. I mean, REALLY decorating for the holidays. I want our home to feel festive--starting with Halloween! The only problem is, we don't have a never-ending supply of money, so I have to find cheap or free ways to decorate our home. These happened to be free since I already had the supplies lying around the house. 


First, we have spooky ghosts and bats! We made about 15 of these to hang around the house. 



I went online and found a free coloring sheet with the kind of bat & ghost I wanted. I had to adjust the size a little bit to make them larger. 
I used a heavy piece of cardboard (not the corrugated kind) to cut them out of. 
We painted them with washable paint. 


I went back after the kids were done and added a second coat of paint to make them look a little bit darker. 
When they were done drying, I added faces to the ghosts with a sharpie. 
I used an awl and poked a small hole in the top of each one and tied a piece of fishing line to them so we could hang them. 
We hung them in the entryway, living room, hallway & kitchen! 
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Halloween Trees

You can use just about anything to make these and you can make them for any holiday! 


For these, you will need scissors, tissue paper, cardstock, clear tape, and hot glue. 

We'll start with this one:

First, make your cone out of cardstock. 
Tape it in place. 
I just rolled it into a cone shape and trimmed the bottom so it would sit upright. 


Next, I cut the tissue paper into lots of squares. They were about 1"x 1".
Scrunch them up and glue them around the bottom of the cone. 
You can glue them in whatever pattern you like. 

You'll have to excuse the mess....I'm a multi-tasker. 
Keep going up the cone. Glue the tissue paper very closely together.
Try not to let the paper underneath show.
Progress! Keep going....

Viola! Finished!
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Now on to the next Halloween Tree!


Make a cone out of cardstock again. 
This time, cut your tissue paper into strips and twist them. 


You're going to start with a 'guide' strip. Glue on your strip in whatever design you want. I went with a crazy random swirl. You want it to go all the way around and from top to bottom. This is going to be the strip you use to guide you as you glue on more. You may have to use more than just one piece of tissue paper, depending on how long you cut each strip. 

Here's my 'guide strip'. 
Notice how it starts on one side and you can see it goes all the way around.

Next, you're going to glue your orange strip right next to it. Follow your guide strip as you glue. 
Keep the pattern going...black, orange, black, orange.


Progress! Keep going!

Keep going until the whole thing is filled up!

Finished!
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Here is a picture of our Halloween trees and some ghosts and a bat decorating our mantle. 



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