I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I love to go WILD decorating my home for all the different holidays, but Hallowe’en is – hands down – my favourite. Oh, our house is the one that all the neighbourhood kids want to come to; the one the traffic jams form in front of because all the cars need to slow down as they pass and stare at our fabulous display. Yes, we love to go crazy and “scare” the neighbourhood, and we try to outdo ourselves year after year!
But despite all the spooky enthusiasm, I have two strict rules in my household:
- You got 10 days to impress ’em
- You got 10 bucks to do it with.
Back when my teenagers were little kids, they liked to go way over the top with the Hallowe’en preparation. I swear, the second September 30th was over, they were nagging me to string up witches in our shrubs, and I very quickly realized that we were going to get mighty sick (and mighty fast) of having our front lawn turned into a graveyard, and secondly, the cost of decorations was going to break the bank.
Now mind you, over years we’ve developed a good stash of skeletons, brooms, pointy hats and vampire fangs, but you’d be amazed how much you can do without spending a penny. In fact, some of the best (and scariest) stuff we’ve done to our home has been made from scratch. Here are my top three frugal frights for Hallowe’en 2009:
- RECYCLE! Borrow some boxes from the recycling (they’ll still take cardboard in November, you know), paint them gray and cut them out to look like tombstones. Then take a black marker and get creative…teenagers are especially good at this part, but even something simple like “RIP Tom Bones 1958-Oct 31 2009” will work, especilly if you pile a small mound of fresh dirt in front of it!
- REUSE! Don’t donate all those old clothes your husband doesn’t wear anymore to charity quite yet – stuffed with shopping bags or newspaper (great way to reuse these items too, by the way) you can make a very realistic body. Around the collar of the shirt, paint or colour red drips (my kids used ketchup one year – it is sickeningly realistic looking!) and you have a “headless horseman” type display. Old dolls and stuffed toys can easily be modified with “fake blood” or a magic marker to become very frightening indeed!
- THRIFT SHOP! One of the best displays my kids ever made was using an old bridal veil and white gloves they picked up at the thrift store for a few dollars. They parked our car on the driveway, and placed the headpiece of the veil in the trunk, with most of the actual veil trailing outside. Then they stuffed the gloves with shopping bags (less lumpy than newspaper), and placed them half-in, half-out of the trunk, and fastened them facing upwards (as if trying to pry open the trunk from inside). After they shut the trunk, they hung a “just married” sign on the bumper – it even gave me shivers!
So you see, not only can you make your house the talk of the neighbourhood this Hallowe’en, but you don’t have to spend a lot of money to do it. After all, anyone can spend a hundred dollars on a cutesy blow-up hot-air vampire. And do you know how much it costs on your electricity bill to keep one of those things running, anyway?