- Garbage bags. These plastic critters can be your best friends at Halloween. Create a spider by stuffing a large black garbage bag and using extra strips as legs. Create mini ghosts with smaller white bags by stuffing the bottom, tying off the “head” and then cutting up the opening to make it more ragged.
- Old clothing. Stuffing old clothing with newspaper, plastic bags, or even other clothing leads to: instant corpse! You can take advantage of any old Halloween masks hanging around as the head or use a stuffed plastic bag instead. Stick your dummy on the porch or lawn in a creative way and watch the kids shriek with delight.
- Bed sheets. While the notion of giving up your bed sheets to the scissors isn’t always appealing, there’s no reason why they can’t be of some use. Create a ghost head with some plastic bags stuffed inside. Stick them on wooden dowels on the lawn, or add safety pins with string to the edges of your sheet in a couple of key points to hang them.
- String. Classic butcher’s string or twine is often a household item that can be very useful in both supporting other decor ideas. You can also create a giant web to hang in full view and even add your own little spider.
- Mushy pasta. Pasta makes for great special effects to gross out young visitors especially if they’re expecting to see a bowl of candy. Cook long thick spaghetti noodles, add some dirt and grass from outside and you have a bowl of creepy worms to offer the kids as they arrive at the door!
- Cardboard and old boxes. Take advantage of those old boxes hanging around, or pieces of cardboard and create gravestones for your front lawn.
- Cans. The rattle of cans tied to strings above your door will get their bones shaking.
- Bottles. Fill old jars and bottles with water and food coloring and presto – instant science lab! Add some old fruit or vegetables to make “weird experiments” or put oil in the bottles and shake them up to create fun lava lamps.
- Old electronics. Take apart those old electronics in the basement and make your own Frankenstein lab. Putting Christmas lights around them will give them a new “sparkle”. You can even incorporate your newly built dummy as your monster.
- Newspaper or paper. Nothing says creepy like a boarded up building. Write “BEWARE” on a few sheets of newspaper and tape it up to your main windows (green painter’s tape is best). The lights in the living room will shine through, creating an eerie look for the viewers outside. Add even more ambiance by playing a spooky soundtrack the background.
This Halloween, there's no need to rush out and buy expensive decorations. Simply call on your creativity, look to your home supplies and have a hauntingly good time!
