Halloween is a fun and spooky holiday for kids and adults. It is a holiday that is based around embracing scary things, particularly those involving death, the undead, evil magic, and mythical monsters. It is always fun to dress up and decorate the whole house whether for trick-or-treating or throwing a Halloween party. Here are some tips for getting ready for the festivities.
Halloween Crafts
Crafts are terrific ways to decorate the house and entertain kids. Here is a fun Halloween crafts for kids of all ages:
Colored Play Dough
You will need:
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup salt
- 2 tsp. cream of tartar
- Food coloring
Mix all ingredients in saucepan. Heat and stir constantly until a ball forms.
Knead until smooth. Store in an airtight container in your refrigerator.
Use half the recipe only and use different food coloring to make two different colors if you are want to create dough for children’s activities.
Decorations and Sound Effects
No Halloween is complete without spooky decoration and eerie sound effects. Here are some ideas for inside and outside the house.
Haunted Portraits
Paintings and portraits, framed in gold, with black backgrounds, look excellent in your Haunted House.
Download some haunted pictures from the internet and print them in black and white toner. Glue them to black cardboard. Put them in any old frame. If you don’t have a gold frame, spray paint one gold.
Gold spray paint at Walmart was $1.00.
These look excellent in low light conditions. For an added effect, for storytelling, have someone tell tales involving the portraits. If you want a spookier effect, white out the eyes.
Graveyard Tombstones
Tombstones are easy. You can use Styrofoam or cut them from old wood.
Crosses are easier. Two boards nailed together. Paint them white and put a name on them. Stick them into the ground. The face is an old toy.
Make the headstone from a very old piece of Styrofoam and put a toy rat, spider web and stuffed animal on it. For the "haunted fence" around your graveyard, use some garden gate... available from Walmart, Kmart, or any garden shop. You can spray paint it black and add some webbing.
Sound Effects
You can record several scary sounds and play it back during the festivities.
A very large sheet of poster board or sheet metal makes great thunder.
Uncooked rice poured onto a cookie sheet sounds like rain. Crinkle a handful of cellophane for a roaring fire.
To get a good scream you can, well - scream. Snap carrots in half for the sound of breaking bones. Flap a plastic bag in front of the microphone for the sound of bats. Slowly blow bubbles with a straw into a bowl for that bog sound.
Halloween Treats:
Yummy, festive treats are always a Halloween favorite, and with the kids helping, making them can be half the fun.
Gelatin Eyeballs
- 3 oz lemon gelatin
- 1 cup hot water
- 1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
- 1 cup pineapple juice
- 1 8-0z. pkg cream cheese
- 1 cup heavy cream, whipped
- 1 cup mayonnaise
Dissolve lemon gelatin in 1 cup water in double boiler, add marshmallows and stir to melt. Remove from heat. Add pineapple juice and cream cheese. Beat until well blended. Cool slightly. Fold in whipped cream and mayo. Chill until thickened or firm for scooping into eyeballs.
Using a melon baller, scoop full balls of the mixture and set aside for decoration. To decorate, use food coloring and an old paintbrush and get creative. You will need black food coloring for the pupils. Also, if you are in a hurry, instead of painting the colored irises, you can dip the ball in a small pool of food coloring to approximate the iris, but still paint on the pupils.
Edible Spiders
These cute little snacks are very fragile. Use a decorating tube to pipe the icing into spider shapes on waxed paper. They are made from Royal Icing, which needs to be used right away since it hardens to a rocklike texture very quickly!
Royal Icing Mixture
You will need:
- 16 oz powdered sugar (icing sugar)
- 3 egg whites
- 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Beat until peaks firmly hold their shape, and the more you beat it, the firmer it gets.
Pumpkin Carving
The custom of using jack-o’-lanterns for Halloween actually came from the Irish who carved out turnips or beets to use as lanterns. When the Irish immigrated to America, they found that turnips were scarce but pumpkins were abundant. Pumpkins have been a part of Halloween celebrations ever since. Carving a jack-o’-lantern can be as simple or complex as you like-it depends on the design you want to create.
Wicked Witchy Pumpkin
Conjure up this green-faced witch for a haunting porch decoration.
You will need:
- Pumpkin
- Green spray paint
- Tempera paint and brushes
- Carving knife
- Marbles
- Glue
- Small nails
- Black wig
- Cape
- Witch hat
Here’s how:
Step 1: Begin by coating the pumpkin with green spray paint.
Step 2: Add facial features with tempera paint.
Step 3: Next, carve out eye sockets and lodge the marbles inside to form her beady eyes. Break off the top stem and reattach it to the pumpkin with glue for the witch’s nose.
Step 4: To finish, fix the black wig in place with small nails and add the cape and hat. My...pretty!
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