Sunday, March 15, 2009

Making Halloween Arts and Crafts that are Fun and Easy

By Kathy Pratts

Wouldn't it be great to create your own Halloween arts and crafts and transform your home into one big fun haunted house on Halloween? Your kids will absolutely love this idea. All you need is a theme, some accessories, appropriate lighting and sound effects.

A Cemetery Theme for Halloween Arts and Crafts

Coffins, bones, stone hedges, and dead bodies are appropriate for a cemetery theme.

Use a cardboard box for your very own coffin! Also get a large-size cardboard piece and cut out the shape of a coffin for the opening/cover. Paint a red or white cross over the top of the coffin.

You can imitate the sound of stepping over a mass of bones by drying bread in the oven and placing them under an area rug.

Cut out stone hedges out of Styrofoam, paint them gray, and write R.I.P. over them with a marker. You can also write your names or guest's names for that spooky feeling.

For the body parts, you can start by stuffing rubber/latex gloves with cotton and painting the opening red for that bloody effect.

For a realistic touch to your home decor, you can fill goblets with blood and display them in hallways and your dining area! This will enhance that vampire-in-coffin feel. You can purchase clear plastic goblets and have fun mixing red food coloring. Make the blood thicker by adding cornstarch to the mixture.

The Pumpkin Yard Halloween Arts And Crafts Theme

For a truly chilling Halloween arts and crafts pumpkin theme, you don't always have to use real pumpkins. Use other fruits such as green bell peppers and mandarins and place tea candles in them to create scary faces.

Spread dried leaves along the hallway and on tables. Hang sticks in your porch. Place plastic spiders, rats and eyeballs within the mass of dead leaves and sticks.

Adding a scary scarecrow to your pumpkin theme would also give your place a realistic look. Hang an old, dusty shirt over a clothes hanger. Staple the bottom part of the shirt and stuff it with hay or dead grass. Use dead branches for the arms. Then, use a witch's hat for the covered scarecrow head. Punch a hole in the hat where the hook of the hanger can go through. Hang the body over windows, doors or cabinet handles.

For cobwebs, you can use cottons which you can spread all over the place. Cotton cobwebs is great for any theme you may have in mind. You can also use washable paint on your windows-you can either use spooking green all over or apply splashes of red for "blood".

Replace your white bulbs with black, orange or red ones bulbs for an eerie lighting effect. You can also cover lamps with colored cloth or netting for eerie shadows.

Scary sounds can be easily downloaded online. Choose sounds of creaking doors, howling wolves, screaming, and ghosts.

Decorating your home with Halloween arts and crafts is as easy as choosing a theme, adding basic Halloween props, altering your lighting and downloading music over the Internet. Just try to be creative and have fun while decorating!

About the Author:

No comments: