Halloween Decorations

Our family usually doesn't do Halloween decorations, partly because my mom thinks they invite the wrong kind of spirit, with dead bodies and witches and junk, and partly because no one ever comes to our house for Halloween. I had a few extra minutes here and there, though, and decided to add a few Halloween-y touches to our Family Room.

 

Like I said, I whipped this up in a few minutes, but it adds a nice festive air to the room, and can easily be adapted to a bigger project.

 I also made fall-themed pillowcases, and between these two updates (pillowcases are much easier/cheaper than pillows, btw), the room seems more fall-themed.

 I made spinny-ghosts, which twirl with the wind currents in the room caused by the fan.

 And bottle Jack-O-Lanterns

  To make the ghosts, I started out with blank sheets of printer paper. I knew I wanted two, so I just did everything with the two stacked right on top of each other.

 I cut (more or less) a circle out of the papers.

 and then I cut the paper into spirals. Sorry if it's hard to see, but make sure you leave a nice-sized circle in the middle for the ghost's heads.

 Then I used a black marker to draw faces on them. You can make these as scary as you want, but like I said, my mom doesn't like 'scary' Halloween decorations, so I stuck with smiley faces.

 Because the plan is for them to be rotating, I flipped them and colored in the backsides, too.

 When I lifted them up to try them out, I didn't like how the heads hung, so I cut a bit of a loop for a neck on each of them.

 This is what they look like, just being help up.

 I punched tiny holes through their heads and strung white thread through them, and then I hung them on the mantle!

 You could very easily tape these up, attach them to the ceiling or whatever you want, just have fun with it!

 To make the Jack-O-Lanterns, I started out with a Ginger Ale bottle we'd gotten at some restaurant or other a while ago. I soaked the bottle to get the label off (probably the hardest/most time consuming part of this project)

 Then I dried the outside off, and outlined the face I wanted in sharpie.

 I then colored it in. If you don't want to color on your bottle, or you don't think it contrasts enough, you can also cut out pieces of black paper and use double-sided tape to stick them on.

 I then filled both bottles (I had a little one, too) with orange water (I just added some orange food coloring to  the big bottle, shook it up with some water, and used that to fill the little one).

 And then I put them on the mantle with two small pumpkins we had sitting around.

All in all, not bad for ~ 20 minutes worth of work.