Halloween is just a few weeks away, though you’d never know it by walking around outside. We’ve had four straight days of beautiful weather; temps in the high 70s and cloudless blue skies. But, step inside our home and you’ll have no trouble figuring out that All Hallows’ Eve is near.
After our overpriced trip to the pumpkin patch, we’ve been busy decorating gourds and making sure our home looks as haunted as possible. Of course, when we’re this far out from Halloween and it’s this hot out, it’s not a good idea to start carving jack-o-lanterns just yet.
However, when you have an overexcited child on your hands, you have to come up with some way to decorate pumpkins. So, why not stick it to them… or on them. Give your kids some Halloween-themed stickers and let them go wild decorating their pumpkins in spooky or silly ways.
You can also give character to pumpkins without carving them by gluing on googly eyes, using yarn for hair, mini marshmallows for teeth, rickrack for eyebrows, a pompom for a nose, and sequins for ears. This year we used leftover poppy seeds to create mini mustaches on my daughter’s smaller pumpkins. You could also paint on some glue to the top of the pumpkin and sprinkle a generous amount of poppy seeds to create a gourd with a buzz cut.
Joining our freshly decorated pumpkins is a family of plastic bag ghosts. This project is an ideal way to recycle white, plastic shopping bags or trash bags. Simply gather up a few bags, plus a black permanent marker, scissors, white paper, tissue paper, white ribbon, yarn, and bamboo skewers or wooden chopsticks from a Chinese take-out restaurant.
Once you have all of your supplies, follow these easy directions:
1. Cut the sides of the plastic bag.
2. Open up the bag, and then cut out a large round circle. (You can use a dinner plate if you need a template.)
3. Roll a ball of tissue paper about the size of a golf ball and place it in the middle of the circle.
4. Pinch the plastic together and tie it with ribbon to form the ghost’s head.
5. Use the permanent marker to draw on a face.
6. Insert the skewer or chopstick into the bottom of the ghost and plant him in the yard or in the grass leading up to your front door.
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